


months go by (but i'm still here)

by jjaeniel



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Slow Burn, There Is Porn In This, daniel/jinwoo subtext thats glaringly obvious, non-au, onghwang if you squint and tilt ur head 30 degrees to the left, talk of disbandment, the rest of wanna one and mmo5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 05:16:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 35,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17975150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjaeniel/pseuds/jjaeniel
Summary: the first time daniel sees ha sungwoon, he’s with someone equally as tiny as him and wearing colored contacts. that’s what daniel’s brain chooses to remember about the first time he sees him- the damn colored contacts.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> so erm... this was supposed to be done in december... it is now march. this was never meant to be chaptered but i figured it'd be easier to read that way so if anything feels awkward i am Sorry. this has been a Struggle to write and i probably never wouldve finished it w out the help of my friends so thank u to them (esp claudia love u)... enjoy !

the first time daniel sees ha sungwoon, he’s with someone equally as tiny as him and wearing colored contacts. that’s what daniel’s brain chooses to remember about the first time he sees him- the damn colored contacts. 

 

he knows the name _ ha sungwoon _ vaguely, knows it in the way he knows that jisung might like whole wheat bread over white or rye, but he isn’t  _ really  _ sure. he knows the name  _ hotshot  _ in the way he knows how jinwoo refuses to speak for the first half hour he’s awake, no matter the situation. he knows these things in the way he knows other things, and suddenly feels a bitterness creep over him for the situation at hand, at how they have to do this to  _ save _ themselves. at least daniel is here to  _ maybe _ get a chance at debuting at all (he doesn’t have high hopes, and he knows his label mates don’t either if at all indicated by taewoong’s self ranking of  _ thirty).  _ they’re sitting in seats twenty through twenty-five, and daniel thinks this is the highest he’ll ever be.

 

it’s only a matter of time before evaluations start, and daniel can feel the nerves thrumming through his veins. he was a  _ performer, _ had been dancing since he could walk, but he was terrified. it’s not everyday you dance for  _ kwon boa, _ for long trained professionals who are ready to decide the course of your life at the drop of a hat. he thinks he’s doing a good job of keeping his nerves under wraps though, knowing if  _ he _ showed  _ his _ nerves, jisung would no doubt freak out. he was the maknae, their baby, but he was the headstrong one, the one who thought this entire thing was a good idea in the first place. 

 

his nerves don’t truly begin to show until he watches ha sungwoon, tiny ha sungwoon make his way up to the stage, accompanied by tiny noh taehyun. they look calm, in their element, and daniel wishes he had that confidence right now. their performance goes by smoothly, and daniel can’t help watching with his mouth agape. it’s- well it’s  _ amazing,  _ exactly like how trained professionals  _ should _ perform, and daniel feels the bitterness that they’re here creep up on him again. none of this was  _ fair, _ but they were here now, and with it came competition (in the back of daniel’s mind, he wonders if you have to be tiny to be amazing).

 

“is kang daniel  _ nervous?”  _ he hears jinwoo pipe up from two chairs down, leaning forward. he’s watching the way daniel’s knee won’t stop bouncing, up and down, up and down. taewoong barks out a laugh at daniel’s face, mumbling a ‘ _ i can’t believe he convinced us into this and now  _ he’s  _ the one nervous’  _ to jinwoo. jaehan places a comforting hand on his restless leg, effectively ceasing his movements and letting out a soft  _ ‘relax, you know this better than we do’ _ when daniel looks at him. daniel thinks that’s the least reassuring thing jaehan has ever told him, but nods anyway and faces back to the front, looking down on the stage. 

 

they have taehyun doing a freestyle now, and daniel suddenly feels out of his element, aware of how much  _ talent _ he’s surrounded by, how he’s going to need to fight to survive. he never was good at fighting, if at all evidenced by the way he cries any time jinwoo gets annoyed and scolds him for playing around too much. his nerves skyrocket when they both receive A class, and daniel just  _ knows _ he’s going to humiliate himself in front of everyone and receive an F. 

 

or so he  _ thinks,  _ until he performs and gets the highest ranking out of the five of them, a spot secured right in B class (daniel pretends he can’t feel sungwoon’s eyes on him, watching him, calculating). jisung and jinwoo end up in F, and daniel feels like crying. they were  _ good, _ they  _ were, _ daniel made sure of it _. _ daniel helped them himself for long hours in one of the spare practice rooms, bouncing between the other four and making sure they all understood what they had to do. he shakes his head when jinwoo tries to talk to him, mind too jumbled up to focus on holding a conversation right now. as they make their way back to their seats, up at twenty through twenty-five, daniel realizes he’s going to be completely alone, without jinwoo, jisung, taewoong, or jaehan, for the first time in a long time. 

 

the first day of B class practice, daniel feels entirely out of his element. it’s not the dance that makes him feel out of place, even though it’s fast paced. he watches as others struggle to get through even the first few steps and wishes he had the confidence to try and help out right now. despite the difficulty, he himself has thankfully mastered everything they’ve taught so far. he feels good at the accomplishment, despite missing his label mates more than anything. he wishes he had his phone so he could shoot off a silly text to their group chat, no doubt one of them bound to reply with something just as silly back. he chances a rest against the back wall, and looks up when a figure looms over him moments later, fully expecting it to be one of the instructors or camera crew coming to scold him. 

 

who he doesn’t expect to see is kim jaehwan- the same kim jaehwan who performed skyfall and blew away everyone in the room with it. he’s holding a water bottle, hand outstretched like he’s… offering it to daniel.

 

“you look thirsty,” is all jaehwan says, shaking the water bottle slightly back and forth. daniel reaches up hesitantly, accepting the bottle with a soft “ _ thank you, _ ” wondering what prompted jaehwan to come over to him specifically _.  _ he wasn’t the only one sitting down, others scattered around the room, no doubt  _ also _ looking thirsty. 

 

“so… you- sing?” daniel’s brain helpfully supplies for him to say, immediately cringing the second the words leave his mouth. of  _ course _ jaehwan sings, why _ else  _ would he be here,  _ daniel _ . 

 

to be fair, he’s just a little starstruck, just a little overwhelmed  _ kim jaehwan _ is talking to him.

 

“i sure do, buddy,” jaehwan says with a smile, letting out a little laugh in the process, sliding down the wall to sit down next to daniel. “and you dance?” he guesses, voice questioning.

 

“yeah, since i could walk basically,” daniel responds, taking a swig from the water bottle jaehwan handed him. “i saw you on god’s voice, you know. like, me and my mom watched it and were in awe at how good your voice is.”

 

at this jaehwan blushes, ducking his head and mumbling out a quick thanks. “it shows, that you’ve been dancing since forever,” he says after a while. “i’m just the equivalent of like, a wet noodle sliding down the wall or something.”

 

“i dunno man, your freestyle was pretty good,” daniel says, mirth filling his voice. he looks at jaehwan and smiles so wide he can barely see, and jaehwan laughs in return. it was comfortable, talking to jaehwan. he still missed his label mates, but if  _ this _ was how the show was going to be, he felt like he wouldn’t really mind it too much.

 

they get scolded moments later for not practicing, and daniel nods when jaehwan asks for help with certain parts of the dance. daniel is glad to at least have made one friend in the short amount of time here.

  
  
  


the first time daniel gets to talk to ha sungwoon, it’s when he’s leaving the shower. 

 

he doesn’t expect to run into anyone, purposely not bringing clothes with him because it was late. all he expected to do was shower, go back to his room, and go to bed. 

 

someone in the universe obviously had other plans for daniel, though. 

 

he feels his pulse skyrocket when he opens the door to find ha sungwoon (now that daniel is face to face with him, he’s even smaller than he thought previously) and he makes a noise of surprise. 

 

“oh- fuck- shit sorry, i didn’t think anyone else was awake,” daniel rushes out, hoping that’s enough to explain his lack of clothes. he feels the same starstruck feeling as the first time jaehwan approached him, but amplified, more intense. this is a  _ real idol _ , someone who already accomplished what he’s here to do. he has so many questions- so many things he wants to know. “i… don’t have clothes,” he finishes awkwardly, shifting slightly

 

“uh...huh,” sungwoon says, eyes taking in daniel’s lack of clothes before going back up to his face. daniel feels himself blush, and he suddenly wishes he was somewhere far,  _ far _ away. “i can see that.”

 

“so… you’re in A class,” daniel says, leaning against the door frame. he doesn’t know why he hasn’t just left yet, gone back to his room and gone to bed. he  _ should’ve.  _ but yet,  _ yet _ , he’s standing here talking to ha sungwoon, everything he wants to be and more. 

 

“uh, yup,” sungwoon says, looking past daniel and into the bathroom. he really just wanted to shower. 

 

“cool… cool,” daniel says with a nod, suddenly feeling like all his social skills have evaporated at the drop of a hat (not that he had many to begin with but- it’s the principle of the thing). this whole thing was so fucking  _ awkward _ , and daniel wasn’t helping himself in the slightest. “i’m in B,” he offers, mentally hitting himself for not just getting out of the  _ fucking  _ way and leaving. 

 

”yeah,” sungwoon says, tapping his foot impatiently. “listen, this is great but can i just-“ he starts, finishing with some hand gesture to mimic squeezing past daniel. 

 

daniel thinks about how nice it’d be to get buried in the ground and never come out. 

 

“oh, yeah- sorry,” he rushes out, dodging out of the way, movements awkward and disjointed. “i’ll um, see you around?” he asks, more to say something than actually meaning it- even if he  _ did  _ mean it. he wanted to see sungwoon around. wanted to be his  _ friend. _

 

“sure,” sungwoon says uninterestedly before slipping into the bathroom, effectively leaving daniel half naked and still dripping wet right there in the hallway. 

 

daniel curses whatever god made  _ that _ interaction happen, and makes his way down the hall to his room. what the  _ fuck.  _

  
  
  


daniel doesn’t have much time to think about his interaction with sungwoon after it happens. re-evaluations are fast approaching, and daniel needs nothing more than to get to A class. mainly to prove to himself he can do it, partially so his label mates will be proud of him. he hopes they’re doing okay, having only talked to them in scattered increments throughout the past few days.

 

after recordings, when it's late at night and they get a few hours to themselves, daniel finds himself in an empty practice room. he plays nayana on low volume, to focus more on the moves than the music, and starts going through each movement painstakingly slow.

 

then, like the universe just wants to ruin things for him, the door slams open.

 

now, daniel will never admit to the shriek that left his mouth, no matter how much you offer to pay him. he’s  _ kang daniel _ (not that that means anything, right now, or maybe ever). he’s a  _ cool, calm,  _ and  _ collected  _ kang daniel, and  _ he did not scream _ .

 

but he did. he totally, absolutely did, and it was  _ loud _ .

 

“jesus- fucking christ,” the intruder says, hand over his heart in shock. “can you scream any  _ louder?” _

 

“you’re the one who busted in here like a bull in a china shop!” daniel exclaims, heart still beating rapidly in his chest. “who the fuck just slams open doors at 3 in the morning!”

 

sungwoon gives him a  _ look, _ one that tells daniel he needs to leave  _ now,  _ and daniel’s eyes travel behind sungwoon to find taehyun. taehyun who looks-  _ well _ . he looks ruffled and daniel doesn’t want to know what happened before they got here for taehyun to end up like  _ that. _

 

hurriedly packing up his stuff (because to be honest, he’s still a little scared of sungwoon, and doesn’t want to know what’ll happen if he fights this), daniel pushes his way past sungwoon and taehyun. he only stops when there’s a hand on his wrist, slim fingers wrapping around to keep him in place. 

 

“don’t tell anyone about this, yeah?” sungwoon says, half desperate, half warning tone in his words. daniel suddenly understands  _ everything _ and nods quickly, jerkily, saying  _ something  _ (he can’t remember what he says, doesn’t want to). sungwoon lets go of his wrist and slips into the practice room with taehyun trailing close behind him.

 

daniel stands there long enough to hear the lock click, and rushes down the hallway before he can hear anymore. he hears the echo of sungwoon’s words in his head, haunting him like some sort of ghost, and decides that he does not like the feeling sungwoon gives him.

  
  
  


when daniel gets the little folded piece of paper sealing his fate in A class, he’s just a little ecstatic and just a little intimidated by the stare sungwoon gives him when he enters the room. that night in the practice room echos through his head loudly, and it’s like sungwoon can tell because he narrows his eyes, as if reminding daniel to keep his mouth shut.

 

and daniel’s not an idiot. he wouldn’t say anything that would jeopardize sungwoon’s career, his image. he’s not stupid, and he  _ gets it.  _ despite this, he sticks close to little woojin and makes friends with seongwu, missing jaehwan and his label mates (really, not having his phone sucks. not being able to talk to jinwoo or jisung or jaehan or taewoong regularly  _ sucks). _ this show just loved to pull friends away from each other, he’d learned. 

 

before he knows it, he’s standing backstage in a  _ studio, _ watching the others shuffle around him nervously. his eyes drift to sungwoon and taehyun who almost look…  _ bored _ . and daniel understands, he knows that this isn’t exactly  _ new _ to them, but he thinks it’s a little unnecessary when sungwoon narrows his eyes at sangbin saying he’s nervous for the fifteenth time.

 

they call the trainees to the stage, daniel almost preening at the fans who cheer for him.  _ for him _ . when he catches a hotshot slogan, his smile turns a bit grim- he still didn’t think any of this was fair for them. 

 

then rehearsal starts. daniel thinks he could get used to this, get used to the blinding lights as he dances. the cheers don’t stop, even after final performance (the one that goes on tv!  _ tv) _ ), and daniel hopes that this joy follows him all the way back to the training center. 

 

it isn’t long until daniel realizes that his hopes are very well crushed. brutally murdered, even.

 

his hopes and dreams have been absolutely torn down by none other than ha sungwoon himself. of course, it was on his own volition, but he stands by the fact that it was not his fault. 

 

it goes like this:

 

daniel wanders down the hall, toothbrush in his hand as he heads down to his dorm, before smacking right into (tiny, really, he’s so tiny, daniel thinks) sungwoon.

 

“again, really?” sungwoon glares, stepping back.

 

“s-sorry,” daniel stutters, apologizing quickly. “ho-how was, your day?”

 

“goddamn, you suck at small talk, daniel. it was fine, okay? you were there for all of it, so i don’t get why you’re asking,” sungwoon bites (for honestly, no reason), although he leans back against the wall. nothing sungwoon did ever correlated with his actions, daniel thinks.

 

“i was just… wondering if it- if it felt the same, y’know? like how, when- when you were an idol. did it still feel- good?” daniel nervously bites his lip. he watches sungwoon’s face change, going from neutral to annoyed in a split second. 

 

“if it was good, i wouldn’t be here. if it was fucking great, i wouldn’t have to be  _ here,” _ sungwoon says, very very bitter.

 

“ _ shit- _ i’m sorry, sungwoon. i didn’t-“

 

“you never knew, daniel. so stop assuming you do. stop asking me how it was. if you had any common sense, you’d know that if it was a good life, i wouldn’t have to be _ here _ . it’s shit, daniel, the whole situation is. so do yourself, and me, a favor and don’t pull this shit with the nu’est guys, okay? we’re fucking desperate, doesn’t cost much to have a little kindness.”

 

daniel watches sungwoon walk down the hallway, feeling the rising anger in his throat. he knows that sungwoon is his senior in both ways, but this is just getting annoying. he speaks before sungwoon turns the corner, effectively stopping him in his tracks when daniel opens his mouth.

 

“i understand that you’re desperate,  _ hyung _ , but that doesn’t mean you get to be rude to me. i haven’t done anything to you. i just wanted to know what it was like. you didn’t have to answer, yeah, but you also didn’t have to be rude about it. we want a chance too, okay? i’m sorry things didn’t work out, but we have just as much as a right to be here as you do,” daniel says as passively as he can, not bothering to wait for sungwoon’s response before slipping into the room and shutting the door right behind him. he sighs while sliding down it. 

 

he guesses it’s safe to say he’s completely and utterly  _ fucked _ .

  
  
  


he wakes up to seongwu shaking him from the ladder, voice soft when he says  _ “jinwoo’s here for you.”  _ daniel rolls over and looks out the door, and sure enough, there was jinwoo on his phone, looking bored. 

 

“what the fuck, hyung,” daniel says after he’s dressed and in the hallway, eyes still half open. he was  _ exhausted,  _ not having slept well after his fight (? he doesn’t know what to call it, honestly) with sungwoon. jinwoo ignores him, opting to grab his wrist and tug daniel along through a series of corridors.

 

the room jinwoo leads him to has jisung, jaehan, and taewoong splayed out on the floor, blankets and pillows scattered around. with one glance at his face, jisung pats the spot next to him. daniel takes the offer and lays down, letting out a heavy sigh, like the entire world was on his shoulders. maybe it was, at this point. 

 

“what’s going on?” jaehan asks, propping himself up on his elbows to watch daniel curl into a ball, jinwoo sitting down next to him. they were in a makeshift circle at this point, and daniel felt like he was in  _ therapy. _

 

“i fucked up,” is all daniel offers at first, leaning up into jisung’s hand when the elder places it on his head. “i think ha sungwoon hates me.”

 

“ha sungwoon? who the fuck is ha sungwoon,” jinwoo asks, voice gruff like it always was, resting a hand on daniel’s ankle. he rubbed his thumb back and forth across the bone, actions always contradicting his tone of voice.

 

“hotshot ha sungwoon,” taewoong pipes up from next to jinwoo, rolling his eyes. “really, hyung, do you know  _ anyone?” _

 

“absolutely not, i don’t retain any information,” jinwoo says. “amazing how you expect me to know these things, though.”

 

“can we get back to the topic at hand?” daniel says miserably. “like, i ran into him in the hall? and we- i don’t know- fought? i guess? i get that he was an idol and all, but, i- i just got tired of him pushing me around... and i just. told him ‘off’” daniel makes air quotes, sighing. “like, i said that we all deserve to be here too, despite him being an idol and all.”

 

“so, did you cry this time?” jinwoo asks, leaning forward. he ducks out of the way when one of daniel’s long arms comes around to try and smack him, and laughs loudly.

 

“shut the  _ fuck up, _ that was  _ one time!” _ daniel says, smiling slightly despite himself. it felt good to be talking to his label mates again, even if he knew time was of the essence and they’d be found in no time, forced to go back to the reality of filming a show, of being in a  _ competition.  _

 

“one, very  _ funny _ time,” jinwoo says, and lets out a “ _ what! it was!”  _ when jaehan gives him a suffering look. 

  
“you guys are fucking weird,” taewoong says, not providing any sustenance to the conversation. 

 

“so you yelled at ha sungwoon and now you’re worried he hates you,” jisung says, reeling the conversation back in. he always was the mature one, being the oldest, always the one ready to solve problems rather than brush over them. 

 

“i didn’t  _ yell  _ at him-”

 

“moral is,” jisung says, interrupting, “moral is, you need to apologize.”

 

“ _ what?” _ daniel asks, voice full of shock and annoyance. he was  _ not _ about to apologize to sungwoon when he barely did anything wrong.

 

“he’s your senior, he  _ knows _ more than you do, and he’s suffering just as much as we are being here, if not  _ more, _ daniel,” jisung explains, voice calm and level. “maybe he was out of line, i don’t know, i wasn’t there, but you should apologize.”

 

“hyung-”

 

“kang daniel,” jisung says, voice full of warning. daniel knew he had no room to argue anymore, couldn’t convince jisung otherwise even if he pouted and turned up the cuteness. 

 

kang daniel was going to have to apologize to ha sungwoon, and he was going to hate every second of it. 

  
  
  


it takes daniel two weeks to even end up in the same  _ room _ as sungwoon, let alone even _ think _ about apologizing. it’s during practicing for sorry sorry when daniel finally finds a minute, cornering sungwoon in one of the practice rooms. he doesn’t even know if this is going to work, if sungwoon will even  _ listen _ to him, but he has to give it a shot- for jisung at the very least. 

 

“look, look alright- i’m sorry,” he rushes out, feeling awkward and out of his element. he’d gotten used to that feeling, honestly. sungwoon was staring at him with this intense look, like he was just waiting for daniel to fuck up again, and daniel really,  _ really _ wanted to run away. “i’m sorry for like, being a dick. and constantly assuming you had it good before this just because you debuted. sorry for stepping out of line and like… telling you off. sorry for like, everything. i dunno.” 

 

before sungwoon can respond, minhyun busts into the practice room to come and drag him away. daniel sends sungwoon a look, a look he hopes fully encompasses how sorry he is, and all but trips out of the room with how fast minhyun is pulling him along. 

 

“what was that about?” minhyun asks, still walking fast. daniel doesn’t know why they're going so fast, but he keeps up anyway.

 

“nothing,” daniel says quickly, not needing minhyun to know what happened between him and sungwoon. he had told seongwu, and jaehwan, but he didn’t need minhyun to know. it was fine, and over with (hopefully). minhyun doesn’t push him, just tugs him a little bit faster so they’re not as late.

 

their practice goes by smoothly, moves finally cementing themselves into place. it helped having two seasoned professionals and two dancers on the team, ready to help out jaehwan and hyunbin whenever they needed it. they practice most of the night, and daniel feels good-  _ confident,  _ even. as they leave the practice room, all sweaty and muscles aching, daniel gets two feet out the door before getting tugged into a pitch black room roughly, door slamming behind him.

 

he yelps, way too loudly for the situation.

 

“mother _ fucker _ , can you yell any louder?” the figure groans in his ear. it sounds eerily like an echo of that time from the practice room, weeks ago. 

 

“you’re the one who scared  _ me! _ ” daniel exclaims, turning to - sungwoon? he’s pretty sure its sungwoon, anyway, and his thoughts are confirmed when a light is flicked on and he sees sungwoon standing there, arms crossed and looking unimpressed. not for the first time, daniel realizes how  _ small _ sungwoon is, and wonders if he can reach the top shelf. daniel  _ almost _ giggles, but catches himself before sungwoon has another reason to hate him. 

 

“that’s not the point of… this,” sungwoon says hesitantly, hands moving in a broad gesture. “i just... wanted to talk to you, after your apology.”

 

daniel is quiet, leaning against one of the walls of the room and just waiting to hear what sungwoon has to say. he’s nervous, in all honesty, doesn’t want sungwoon to reject his apology and them end up back at square one, back to this weird hatred they’d developed for each other. he figures if that happens, he’ll have to deal with it and just hope they don’t end up in the final group together, forced to suffer through awkwardness for a year and half. 

 

“i accept your apology, first and foremost,” sungwoon says, a little awkward and very formal. daniel lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “but i’m going to need you to understand that if you want to know everything about being an idol, i’m  _ not _ the person to ask. i can help with music show nerves, i can help with practicing, but i cannot help you learn everything. i think you’ll go far daniel, i do, but just because i’ve debuted before doesn’t mean i can help you entirely. we’re  _ all _ back to square one here, we’re all trainees. if you expected anything different from me, then i’m sorry but i cannot provide.”

 

daniel nods, letting out a soft  _ “i got it,” _ suddenly feeling guilty. he can’t imagine how hard it’s been for sungwoon, can’t begin to imagine what it’s like to be back to being a trainee when you’re already years into your career. he thinks back to the first day, and feels the same bitterness creep over him  _ again.  _ he wonders if he’ll ever stop feeling bitter for sungwoon. 

 

“alright well. now we need to hug it out,” sungwoon says suddenly, arms reaching out. daniel gives him a confused look, not knowing where this is coming from, and sungwoon sighs. “me and taehyun- whenever we get mad at each other, we hug it out. it really helps.”

 

“i’m not taehyun,” daniel says, staring at sungwoon. he thinks back to his own tradition with his label mates (a drinking session and lots of kisses) and figures it could be worse.

 

“you’re definitely not,” sungwoon says, coming forward anyway. he wraps his arms around daniel, and huffs. “you have to hug me back, or this is just awkward.”

 

“you’re the one who hugged me in the first place!” daniel says a little incredulously, letting out a laugh. he wraps his arms around sungwoon anyway, and smiles to himself. maybe all  _ wasn’t _ ruined with sungwoon after all. 

 

it’s when sungwoon steps back with an awkward cough, smoothing out his clothes, that daniel fully laughs. this whole situation was a  _ mess, _ yet somehow fit them perfectly. daniel hoped at one point he’d be able to be on a team with sungwoon, see him in action, see him  _ practice.  _ part of daniel wished he could just be around sungwoon more often than he was already. 

 

“anyway, goodnight daniel,” sungwoon says, ears red as he goes to open the door. 

 

“goodnight hyung- wait fuck, can i call you that? i’m sorry, fuck-”

 

“it’s fine, daniel,” sungwoon says as he walks out the door, hand waving in a  _ “it doesn’t matter” _ motion. daniel lets out a sigh of relief, and makes his way out the door as well. him and sungwoon go separate ways, despite them both being in the A dorms, and daniel wonders where he could be going at this hour. he chooses not to question it, and smiles to himself on the way back to his room. 

 

him and sungwoon were- friends now, sorta. it was  _ cool. _

  
  
  


it’s after daniel gets thoroughly scolded for his concept song post on instagram, after he’s dealt with his penalty (no, he didn’t cry, thank you very  _ much, _ jinwoo), that he has an opportunity to  _ finally _ be with sungwoon on a team.

 

an opportunity which he does not take, like an idiot.

 

“what the fuck was going through your mind, daniel? you’ve wanted to be on a team with him for  _ ages, _ yet you do this?” seongwu says, the night of The Incident™ as daniel’s labeled it in his mind. he feels like an  _ idiot- _ and seongwu no doubt thinks he is as well.

 

“i panicked, alright!” daniel tries to defend, pouting. he  _ knows _ he fucked up, can’t forget the confused look on sungwoon’s face when daniel didn’t choose him. “it’s hard enough being leader, which i’m not even doing a good  _ job _ of in the first place, and now they want me to make a decision between three insanely talented people? people who  _ deserve  _ this just as much as the next? how can i do that?”

 

“first of all, you’re doing fine as a leader, niel,” seongwu says, voice comforting. or it  _ is _ comforting, until he spits out a  _ “you’re still a dumbass though,” _ shaking his head. daniel knows this,  _ knows _ this. he truly doesn’t know why he didn’t pick sungwoon, couldn’t explain it if he tried. he  _ knows _ some of his teammates are probably questioning his decision, questioning whether he’s fit to be a leader at this point. daniel is doing the same thing.

 

there’s a knock at their door, and a head hesitantly peeks in. it’s none other than the man in question, and daniel feels like crying. 

 

“daniel? can we talk?” sungwoon asks, looking up to where seongwu and daniel are sitting on daniel’s top bunk. he looks like he came straight from the shower, hair still wet and cheeks flushed from the steam. “sorry if i’m- interrupting something. if you’re busy, i can come back.”

 

“no, he’s not busy,” seongwu says immediately, looking at daniel with a knowing smile. he pushes daniel’s shoulder when the younger gives him a suffering look, and daniel climbs down the ladder awkwardly. following sungwoon to wherever the elder thinks is fit to have whatever conversation he wants to, daniel starts thinking. he wonders if sungwoon is about to yell at him, if he’s disappointed in him, if he thinks daniel made a wrong decision like the rest of his team. 

 

he’s not surprised when he gets pulled into a practice room.

 

“is this like, our thing now?” daniel asks with an anxious laugh, mind running a mile a minute. “talking in practice rooms and stuff?”

 

“daniel,” sungwoon says gently. “you’re freaking out. why?” 

 

“i’m not freaking out,” daniel says hurriedly, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor. sungwoon mirrors his movements across from him, and sighs. “what do you wanna talk about, anyway?”

 

“i want to talk about why you think you’re doing such a bad job being leader,” sungwoon says, and all daniel can do is stare at him. that was  _ not _ what he was expecting, in the slightest. he expected a  _ “why not me?”  _ or a  _ “you made a mistake,” _ but not- not that. he wasn’t expecting sungwoon to call him out so easily. “i could see it in the way you hesitated before calling a name earlier, in the way you looked like you were second guessing every decision you made.”

 

“i don’t know why i’m leader,” daniel says honestly. he had been thinking about it since the team genuinely chose him, gifting him the opportunity. sure, he’d  _ wanted _ to be leader but- he doesn’t know why they chose him. doesn’t know why they haven’t kicked him out of his position yet. “i’m  _ not _ doing a good job,” he stresses, desperate for sungwoon to understand. desperate for sungwoon to validate him, even if it’s fucked up.

 

“daniel, you’re doing  _ fine, _ ” sungwoon stresses, sounding eerily like seongwu from twenty minutes ago. he says it with such conviction, such confidence, daniel wants to believe him. he  _ wants _ to. “you’re doing better than a lot of  _ idol _ leaders i’ve seen. sure, you messed up a little splitting into two groups, but you’re not expected to have it all figured out. you really  _ are _ doing fine.”

 

daniel feels like crying for the second time tonight. 

 

“hyung, i- i don’t think i can do this,” daniel says, voice desperate and full of raw honesty. he doesn’t know what he means more- doesn’t think he can be a leader, or doesn’t think he can go on in this competition. he knows his rank is good-  _ amazing _ even. but all the pressure- all the guilt he feels for doing well while half his label mates are gone (they were supposed to be in this together, always together)- he doesn’t think he can do this. 

 

“daniel,” sungwoon says, sliding across the floor so he was directly in front of daniel, knees touching. he chances reaching out, taking daniel’s face in between his hands. anything to get daniel to  _ understand. _ “you  _ can _ do this. you’ve done so well so far, gained the support of so many people. why do you think you’re not worthy of this?”

 

and daniel- daniel has no clue what to say back. all he can do is stare at sungwoon, blinking owlishly. his brain feels like it’s processing everything slower than normal, and blames it on the lack of sleep over the past few weeks rather than anything to do with sungwoon. 

 

“me and my label mates- we were supposed to be in this together, til the end,” is what daniel decides to say, biting his lip. he sounds like a little kid, he realizes, one who foolishly had a dream too big and had it crushed in the end. he thinks he’s going to cry, and really,  _ really _ hopes that’s not the case. he’s not trying to embarrass himself tonight.

 

“you know they’re so proud of you, though, right?” sungwoon says, and he sounds like he’s talking to someone ages younger than him, rather than two years. daniel can’t find it in him to mind all that much. “you’ve gotten  _ so _ far daniel, you’ve lasted so long in this bullshit competition. it’s almost over, and i doubt you’re going home anytime soon. you  _ can _ do this, even if you think you can’t. we’re in this together now, yeah? me and you, you and jaehwan, you and seongwu, and most importantly you and jisung. we’re all here for you.”

 

daniel thinks he really does cry at this point, the words  _ “we’re in this together” _ making him feel something he doesn’t know how to explain. he buries his face in his knees, and feels his shoulders shake when sungwoon moves to rub his back. he doesn’t know long he sits there on the floor with sungwoon, in the tiny practice room they probably shouldn’t be in this late. 

 

if daniel could remember one thing from this night, it’d be that sungwoon was worth it. even if they got off on the wrong foot at first, he was  _ worth it.  _

  
  
  


the days leading up to the finale, daniel is a nightmare. he’s a ball of nerves, even though he knows his rank is good currently, and he can’t stop thinking about the possibility of making it this far only to fail. he’s worried for his friends- for jisung,  seongwu and jaehwan, minhyun, and most of all sungwoon. he’s most worried for sungwoon.

 

prepping for their final stages is a blur to him, happy for jinyoung when he gets center, just as happy for sungwoon when  _ he  _ gets center. it doesn’t take a genius to realize they both deserve it, with how hard they’ve been working this whole show. 

 

part of daniel can’t wait for this to be over. even if he doesn’t make it, he just can’t wait for it to be  _ over. _ he’s tired- mentally and physically, and while he’s made some great friends here, he misses the routine of being around jinwoo and jaehan, taewoong and jisung, practicing day in and day out for a debut he wasn’t sure was ever going to come. while being a trainee felt hopeless at times- it was consistent. produce 101 was  _ not _ consistent, in any sense of the word. 

 

it’s the night before the finale when daniel is practicing ( _ always practicing, always trying to improve _ ), that sungwoon slips into the room he’s in. daniel slows his movements, eyes following sungwoon in the mirror. his head tilts in confusion when sungwoon doesn’t even  _ look  _ at him, wringing his hands nervously.

 

“hyung?” he questions, movements ceasing, standing still in the middle of the room. he’s starting to think late night practice room meet-ups really  _ are _ their thing. 

 

“hey,” sungwoon says, still not looking at daniel. he’s biting his lip, like he’s debating something, and daniel doesn’t like that at all.

 

“um, do you… need something? or do you just want to, watch?” daniel says awkwardly, not sure why sungwoon is here still. he hopes it’s not to bring daniel bad news.

 

“yeah, i do actually,” sungwoon responds, finally looking up at daniel. he looks distressed- like he’s been thinking a lot, and daniel is even more confused than he was two minutes prior. he watches as sungwoon comes closer, and tilts his head in confusion when the elder grabs his face between his hands.

 

“hyung?” he asks again, softer this time. 

 

“just- just let me do this, just once. before tomorrow happens and our fates are sealed, yeah?” sungwoon says, eyes flicking down to daniel’s lips. daniel suddenly  _ gets it _ and feels his nerves skyrocket. why did sungwoon want to- with  _ him? _

 

he feels himself, more than actually registers, nodding. he feels a little drunk at the proximity, it having been a long time before anything like this has happened (he thinks back to a night with jinwoo, many moons ago, and mentally shakes his head). this was  _ sungwoon, _ a very real sungwoon about to kiss him. he doesn’t have time to wonder  _ why,  _ or what it means, if it means anything at all in the first place. 

 

sungwoon hesitates, licking his lips nervously, and daniel decides to just make the decision for him. he leans in, lips finally connecting after having been in such close proximity for so long, and daniel can’t lie and says he doesn’t feel  _ anything.  _ his hands fall to sungwoon’s waist, bringing the elder closer, opening his mouth when sungwoon’s tongue against his bottom lip prompts him too.

 

it’s all slow, and vaguely erotic if daniel had to put a vibe to it, and daniel wonders where sungwoon got so good at kissing. his mind helpfully supplies that night sungwoon interrupted him, taehyun in tow, and pulls away. he ignores the unsatisfied noise sungwoon lets out to ask a soft  _ “taehyunnie hyung?”  _ and watches as sungwoon rolls his eyes.

 

“we aren’t serious, if that’s what you’re asking,” sungwoon says, voice quiet like he was trying not to break something- the mood that had settled around them, perhaps. “it was a thing born on convenience, years ago.”

 

“okay,” daniel says, before leaning down to kiss sungwoon again. he quite enjoyed it, if he had to say, and wanted to do it  _ more. _ it doesn’t have to mean anything, daniel echos in his head. none of this had to matter right now.

 

he doesn’t know how long they stand there kissing, in the middle of the practice room a night before their fates would be decided by the nation, but daniel thinks this is a fine way to pass the time. 

  
  
  


the day of the finale is a blur, right up until jisung’s name gets called for the final group. 

 

daniel truly doesn’t remember performing  _ anything _ , too strung out on nerves and exhaustion. his fate, everything he’s worked for these past few months, was about to be decided by the nation at large, and daniel was freaking the  _ fuck _ out. 

 

he stands on the stage in his uniform, realizing this is the last time he’s going to wear it, and lets out a shuddery breath. he chances a look behind him, and sees woojin, who -for all intents and purposes- looks like he’s going to absolutely pass out.  _ poor kid.  _

 

his eyes catch sungwoon’s, and he gives him a grateful smile when sungwoon words a simple  _ “breathe.” _ they haven't talked since last night- haven’t had  _ time _ to, but daniel thinks even if they did it wouldn’t matter. it didn’t have to mean anything, it was just a- a heat of the moment thing. something born on convenience, like sungwoon had said about him and taehyun. that’s all it was, all it had to be. 

 

turning back to the front, daniel looks forward to the pyramid in front of him. jinyoung, minhyun, and jisung are already sitting down, waiting for seventh place to be called. he hopes it’s him- hopes this waiting game can just be  _ over.  _ he doesn’t care about rankings anymore, just wants everything to be over and done with. 

 

they call guanlin instead, and daniel feels like tapping his foot impatiently. he looks up to where the eliminated trainees are sitting, and catches jinwoo, taewoong, and jaehan looking at him. they all give him a thumbs up in unison, and daniel smiles softly. 

 

sixth comes next, and daniel lets out a sigh of relief when they finally call woojin. he was worried for a minute the younger was  _ actually _ going to pass out, boa taking way too long in daniel’s opinion to announce who it was. he gives the boy a hug when he passes by, and sends him off with a  _ “you did it!” _

 

the rest of the ranks pass by in a blur, daniel  _ actually _ tapping his foot in impatience, or maybe anxiety, at this point. he makes his way down the stage when boa prompts him to, jihoon trailing behind him, and he feels like he’s going to pass out. he’s either second or first, and he cannot wrap his head around it. he thought he was going to end at  _ twenty-second _ in the beginning. 

 

boa asks him some questions he can’t remember, and he answers in what he hopes is a good way. his mind goes back to a time when it was him and jihoon fighting for first spot again, and smiles to himself. he never  _ did _ see jihoon as competition, no matter how hard the show tried to push it. they were friends- daniel didn’t compete with friends (unless it was taewoong, and they were drinking). 

 

it’s when boa finally gets around to calling first, daniel’s name slipping effortlessly from her mouth, that daniel’s brain short circuits. he thinks he asks for confirmation, just to  _ make sure, _ and remembers nothing of his thank you speech. he makes his way up the pyramid steps on shaky legs, accepting hugs from everyone as he goes, mind fuzzy. 

 

he was- he  _ is  _ the  _ nation’s center.  _ his brain won’t process it, won’t even begin to believe what just happened. he bows once he gets to the top, and takes a seat in his rightful place. he can’t stop  _ smiling _ , cheeks hurting. 

 

it’s when boa announces she’s going to call eleventh place daniel doesn’t know how long later, that his nerves skyrocket. he had a whole other problem to deal with now- who’d be the final member of their group,  _ his _ group. 

 

daniel feels like his heart is going to beat right out of his chest. he’s still in shock he’s first- the nations  _ center _ \- but now he’s more worried for who’s going to be called eleventh. he thinks if boa doesn’t call their name right this second, he’s going to fall off the top of the pyramid, just tumble down all the stairs in front of the nation. he can see the headline now:  _ kang daniel, center of new boy group wanna one, falls down twenty steps during live finale! _

 

she takes her time, dragging it out for what feels like even longer than everything else from tonight, and daniel thinks it’s finally his time to pass out. his eyes stay firmly on sungwoon, still standing on the stage below. he  _ knows _ how badly sungwoon needs this, and just prays his name is called. more for sungwoon than daniel himself- despite daniel  _ wanting  _ to be in a group with sungwoon. 

 

they interview everyone competing for 11th, and daniel feels like he’s going to shake out of his body. he just wants this-  _ needs  _ this to be over. 

 

it’s when he hears the single syllable, the  _ “ha” _ falling from boa’s lips, that daniel’s entire world stops. he doesn’t even remember hearing the rest of sungwoon’s name, doesn’t register anything until he’s hugging sungwoon later, much later. 

 

the room is quiet, despite the buzzing in his ears. his breathing is slow, calm, and yet his nerves still burn bright. tomorrow is the last day they will be here, and it doesn’t feel  _ real. _ he’s in  _ wanna one _ with tiny ha sungwoon. ha sungwoon, who switched rooms to sleep across the room from him in the bottom bunk. ha sungwoon, who he’s kissed on impulse, ha sungwoon who he’s fought with and wanted to scream at at times-  _ that _ ha sungwoon. 

 

“nation’s center, huh,” sungwoon says, eyes shining bright. he reaches out to smooth over daniel’s uniform jacket, and daniel laughs. 

 

“guess so,” daniel replies, letting out a breath. he remembers last night, and reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “hyung, listen i-“

 

and then his mom appears, effectively cutting off anything daniel was about to say. 

 

“mom,” daniel says, voice a little hesitant. he was happy to see her, ecstatic even, but he had to  _ talk _ . he accepts the hug from her anyway, and whines out a  _ “mooom” _ when she kisses his cheek and pulls on his ear like he’s six again, and looks over to sungwoon who’s watching this whole thing in amusement. 

 

“so, who’s this handsome friend of yours?” his mom asks, turning to sungwoon. her arm is still around daniel’s waist, and daniel feels warm and happy. he  _ missed  _ her, even if he talked to her every chance he got during the show. 

 

“ _ mom,” _ daniel says, cheeks flushing, ears bright red. “you watched the show!”

 

“well, you didn’t introduce me, so how am i supposed to know if this is who i think it is?” his mom replies, giving daniel a look.  

 

daniel groans, and mumbles out a  _ “mom, ha sungwoon, sungwoonie hyung, my mom,” _ as fast as he can. he ignores the laugh sungwoon lets out, and watches as sungwoon reaches out to shake daniel’s mom’s hand. 

 

“it’s nice to finally meet you, ms. kang,” sungwoon says, voice soft and happy. “daniel talks about you a lot,” he tacks on, smiling up at daniel when the younger groans loudly. 

 

“niel, you have such nice friends, why don’t you bring them home ever?” his mom says disapprovingly, tsk’ing and shaking her head. sungwoon lets out a laugh, and goes to say he’ll force daniel to one day, before daniel effectively cuts him off. 

 

“nice chat! see you later sungwoonie hyung!” daniel says, effectively steering his mom away from him. he yelps at the pinch his mom delivers to his side, and whines when she scolds him for being rude.

 

“is that the same ha sungwoon you told me about?” she asks, looking up at daniel.

 

“yes, mom,” daniel says, biting his lip. “only ha sungwoon in the whole competition. can’t believe you pretended not to know him. why would you  _ do that _ ,” he says, voice petulant.

 

“because it’s my job as your mom to embarrass you,” she says with a smile, patting his side lovingly. the backstage area is starting to thin out now. it’s late, too late to still be awake. “bring him home, sometime. not when you come home now but- sometime. i want to cook for him, he looks too skinny.”

 

and daniel groans, because he’s daniel and his mom is his mom. but if he smiles to himself after, no one needs to know. she drops him off at his dorm, for the last night he’ll be there, and he promises he’ll be home -back in busan- within the next few days.

 

in the end, produce 101 doesn’t go out with a bang, like daniel expected. it goes out softly, quietly, without much pomp and circumstance. it's almost anticlimactic, in a way, so much build up to end with him turning off the lights and shutting the door softly behind him. but it is what it is, daniel figures, because now daniel has ten other people by his side and he’s fine with that. he thinks wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

but for now, he’s going home, because he deserves this. he  _ deserves _ this (he’ll never get used to being center, though).


	2. two

daniel isn’t normally one to get nervous. or he wasn’t, really, until produce 101 fucked up some fundamental connection in his brain, turned him upside down and righted him again expecting him to walk in a straight line. 

 

so no, daniel didn’t used to get nervous, but right now he was  _ very very nervous. _ there’s no reason why, really, but daniel has accepted the fact that his body is a traitor and makes his nerves alight by the pure fact that he has to sit next to sungwoon while they’re in the practice room, running over the moves of their debut song, listening while the instructor gives them a pep talk. he thinks this whole situation is stupid, truly and genuinely.

 

they still haven’t talked about the fucking kiss. it’s been (daniel mentally checks his watch) three weeks. three weeks of not talking about this giant fucking elephant in the room, this thing they did that no one else knows about, this thing they did that no one else  _ can _ know about. three weeks of radio silence that daniel was okay with at first, that didn’t bother him too much, but realized that all it did was cause absolute shit.

 

he thinks of cornering sungwoon, but figures that his tiny, buff, body is stronger than he thinks, so he decides against it. and besides, angry sungwoon really fucking sucked to deal with. he would  _ know, _ had dealt with it for a month.

 

luckily, or maybe unluckily, for daniel, he doesn’t even have  _ time _ to talk to sungwoon. he wants to, he really does, but there’s absolutely no time in between debut preparations and his own personal schedules. being center, daniel realized, was not all it was cut out to be. he was  _ exhausted,  _ mentally and physically, and barely could get three hours of sleep in before he was being woken up and carted somewhere new. 

 

he knows this is what he signed up for, knows this wholeheartedly, and he’s  _ so _ grateful he feels like he could cry sometimes, but he’s tired. kang daniel is tired.

 

that’s why when he gets yelled at later - _ for the fourth time _ \- during practice for fucking up the moves  _ again, _ he breaks down. he accepts being yelled at ( _ “do you not want this as bad as everyone else? they’re all working hard, kang daniel, and you look like you’re barely putting in any effort at all,”) _ , accepts having to do the moves over again in front of everyone ( _ just staring, watching, everyone always just watching _ ), accepts the scolding  _ again _ when he does it perfectly ( _ “you’re a dancer yet you can’t dance on beat? yet you can do it without the music? how does that work, kang daniel?”),  _ and walks out of the studio for fresh air the second the instructor calls a 10 minute break in frustration. 

 

he slides down the brick wall, burying his face in his knees, and takes deep slow breaths. he can’t cry right now, can’t go back into the practice room looking like a little kid who cried  _ purely _ because they got scolded. a door opens suddenly, and there’s a heavy sigh before someone sits down in the spot next to him. 

 

“you alright?” sungwoon says (always sungwoon- it’s always fucking him). daniel grunts, and lets out a  _ “i’m fine,” _ effectively convincing  _ no one.  _ he was not fine and he knew it, sungwoon knew it, hell, the whole  _ nation _ probably knew at this point. daniel is starting to think he was never meant for this in the first place. “don’t bullshit,” sungwoon calls him out, bumping daniel’s shoulder with his own. 

 

“i’m tired,” daniel says honestly, candidly, and he starts to wonder what about sungwoon makes him so honest. “i’m exhausted, hyung. and i can’t- i can’t  _ focus _ anymore, my body physically won’t let me, and i  _ know _ it looks like i’m not trying but i  _ am. _

 

“and i know… i know everyone else is tired too. i know that, but they at least look like they’re trying. why can’t i?” daniel says miserably, head moving so he could look at sungwoon. even now, just sitting there, daniel feels like it’s taking all his energy to stay upright.

 

sungwoon shifts, lending a shoulder like he  _ knew _ what daniel was thinking. daniel sighs, leaning into sungwoon, resting his head heavily on the elders shoulder. he didn’t want to go back in there, didn’t want to do any of this right now, just wanted to  _ go home. _

 

“alright,” sungwoon says after five minutes, standing up and dragging daniel with him. “just follow my lead, yeah?”

 

“hyung what-”

 

and then sungwoon opens the door, pushing daniel forward. they walk, with sungwoon’s hand on daniel’s lower back, and daniel has no choice but to follow along. he trusts sungwoon, even if it means he has no idea what’s about to happen.

 

“daniel’s sick,” is what comes out of sungwoon’s mouth, staring right at their manager. their manager blanches for a minute, before saying  _ “he was fine ten minutes ago!” _ and sungwoon gives him an unimpressed look. sungwoon reaches down, just discretely enough so no one notices, and grabs daniel’s ass. just- full on gropes daniel in the middle of the practice room. daniel coughs to cover his noise of surprise, and feels his entire face flush. what the  _ fuck. _

 

_ sungwoon just grabbed his ass (daniel didn’t mind, in the grand scheme of things, seongwu grabbed his ass all the time- but why did this time feel different?). _

 

“look, he’s even flushed. i’m not kidding when i say he’s sick. it’s probably because he hasn’t gotten enough sleep lately, but i digress,” sungwoon says, ignoring daniel’s dilemma, voice just bitter enough so their manager  _ knows _ he’s unhappy. daniel doesn’t miss the flash of hesitance across his face before speaking again, looking as if he was unsure- whether it be with the situation, or just in general, daniel didn’t know. “you know he’s not fine, a daniel who was fine would never mess up that much during practice,” he adds, voice going back to more respectful than it was moments ago.

 

their manager sits there, staring at sungwoon, eyes traveling to a flushed (and very embarrassed) daniel, and sighs heavily. 

 

“fine,” is all he says, quickly typing out something on his phone. he tells daniel to get his stuff, telling him their other manager will be here to pick him up in a few minutes, and turns to sungwoon. “you too. you’re taking care of him and making sure he rests,” he says. 

 

sungwoon stares at their manager in shock, sputtering slightly, and choking out a weak  _ “i still need to practice?” _ daniel watches as his face morphs into one of slight panic, and furrows his brows. their manager reminds him  _ he’s  _ the one who fought for daniel to go home, and _ someone _ needed to make sure he actually rested, and sungwoon can’t argue anymore. he knows he’s pushed it enough today, can’t risk doing anything else.

 

he follows behind daniel when their other manager shows up, and is eerily quiet the whole ride back to the dorms. daniel doesn’t push, honestly too tired to really care, and nearly falls asleep on the drive back. he distinctly does not think about sungwoon grabbing his ass, and drags himself with all his remaining energy up to the dorm.

 

“you should shower,” sungwoon prompts him softly when they get in the door, and daniel can’t stop seeing the panic that was on sungwoon’s face back in the practice room. it’s echoing throughout his head, thought almost photographic with how clear it was in his mind. daniel didn’t  _ get _ sungwoon, didn’t understand anything about the elder in the slightest. he can’t outright ask sungwoon, can’t casually go  _ “hey! why did the thought of being alone with me make you so panicked?”  _ and daniel wants to scream. “i know you’re exhausted, but you should,” sungwoon adds. 

 

and daniel- daniel suddenly feels guilty. feels like a  _ problem, _ feels like maybe he should’ve fought to stay. feels like it’s not  _ fair _ he gets to be home, that he indirectly pulled sungwoon away from practicing, thinks it’s not fair in the slightest for 9 other people to still be working hard while he’s at home sleeping after barely working at all (he ignores how he hasn’t properly slept in two weeks in favor of being mad at himself). 

 

"sure, hyung," daniel says, voice barely above a whisper. he doesn't know where the sudden self-hatred came from, but he doesn't like it. he goes to collect his shower stuff, and comes back out minutes later to find sungwoon standing in the same spot by the door he was in when they first walked in. "sungwoonie hyung?" he says, voice full of concern.

 

sungwoon hums, eyes finally leaving their place where they were staring blankly at the wall, and smiles in what daniel thinks is supposed to be reassurance. "just want to apologize if i made you uncomfortable earlier, nielie. was thinking on my feet, didn't really think about how you'd feel until after," he says.

 

"it's alright, hyung, really," daniel says, giving sungwoon a smile, one he hopes will convince the elder it really  _ was _ fine. "seongwu hyung grabs my ass all the time, kinda used to it at this point," he adds with a laugh, one that’s more a puff of air than an actual laugh.

 

"alright," sungwoon responds, shaking his head slightly as if to clear a thought. daniel watches him for a second, watches as sungwoon clears his throat and daniel can  _ see  _ the thoughts racing through sungwoon's head. he chooses not to push, for the second time that day, and makes his way into the bathroom.

 

closing the door gently behind him, daniel takes a minute to just lean against it, letting out a heavy sigh. he really  _ was _ exhausted, wasn't lying before just because he was upset from getting yelled at. he takes a minute to just breathe, feeling like he hasn't even been allowed to do  _ that _ by himself for the past few weeks and sets his clean clothes on the sink. moving to switch on the shower, daniel thinks back to sungwoon's behavior. he chalks it up to sungwoon being tired as well, and hopes the elder can get some rest as well while they're here.

 

daniel decides to push any and everything to do with sungwoon out of his brain for the time being, and focuses on showering. everything would be fine between them, with them. he was sure of it.

  
  
  


kang daniel is decidedly, a fucking fool. 

 

he realizes, suddenly, all at once, like he was hit with a fucking bus, that something has fundamentally changed in the way he feels about ha sungwoon. he has this realization right in the middle of one of their few nights off before debut, while they’re all gathered around in the living room watching a movie. half of them have fallen asleep by now, the rest doing god knows what while the shit movie continues to flash on screen, unabashedly lighting sungwoon up in some faux form of holiness. 

 

and daniel can’t stop  _ staring. _ it’s lazy, in the way he watches sungwoon, in the way he shamelessly stares. sungwoon eyes are shut, and his head is lolled back to rest on the seat cushion of the couch, body curled up protectively where he’s sitting on the floor. it doesn’t look comfortable, his position, but from where daniel’s sitting on the loveseat squished next to a sleeping seongwu, he can see sungwoon perfectly. 

 

“ _ daniel, _ ” he hears minhyun pipe up from the couch, and just by his tone daniel knows what he’s asking- what he’s implying. daniel feels himself blush, feels himself curl into a ball the best he can with seongwu taking up ¾ of the loveseat, but his eyes don’t stray from sungwoon. “ _ puppy love _ ,” he hisses out when daniel ignores him, and daniel wants to argue. wants to tell minhyun he’s wrong- that this isn’t something notable. that this is merely another passing thought in a sea of passing thoughts that doesn’t require any serious attention. 

 

something holds him back from saying anything at all, though. he’s content to just stare, just watch sungwoon breathe, to process this newfound realization as slow as he wants to. he doesn’t feel rushed to do anything at all. seongwu shifts next to him, mumbling out something in his sleep, and daniel watches as minhyun’s eyes shift to seongwu, something there  _ softening.  _

 

he doesn’t comment, suddenly feels like he’s invading in on something private, and sinks into the couch, letting his gaze drift to sungwoon again while his cheeks burn with  _ something _ . something that feels so oddly familiar, it has his mind wandering. 

 

his thoughts start drifting to his childhood, back to his first crush. he was 14 when he met her, when the pretty girl who ended up sitting two desks to the right walked into class for the first time, and daniel knew he was done for. he’d spent months obsessing over her, watching her flit from place to place, watched her surpass him in grades and intellect. when she found out it’d been a nightmare for his 14 year old ego, but not unexpected, and she’d politely turned him down. sure, he nursed his broken heart for weeks, but he eventually got over it, moved on. his friends had made fun of him for months, but nothing ever felt wrong. 

 

he was 16 when he’d fallen in love with a boy for the first time, a transfer student from daegu. daniel had been assigned to show him around the school, to make sure he could find his way around confidently. daniel was taller than him by a few inches, broader and generally just  _ bigger _ than him. that didn’t really matter though, when daniel was pinned to the wall in the empty cafeteria and kissed for the first time. the boy had looked at him, panic in his eyes, made him promise not to tell anyone, and daniel- daniel just nodded. he understood (but did he  _ really _ ?). his friends couldn’t make fun of him this time- daniel made sure of that.

 

he’d told his mom, because he tells his mom everything, and his mom -in the most devastating way daniel’s ever seen- had went  _ “oh honey,”  _  and hugged him. 

 

and he was confused at first, confused at the reaction, because there was nothing  _ wrong.  _ nothing had happened for her to have that reaction, he thought. he only fully understood everything when his mother explained. explained how people were cruel- how they could say nasty things if they found out, and daniel didn’t like that at all. he didn’t  _ feel _ wrong, so why did people  _ believe _ he was? he had simply just- loved two people. he didn’t see why gender mattered, all that much. it was hard, for his 16 year old mind to wrap around everything his mother had said. was hard to understand why her support was so-  _ important _ at that time.

 

or rather, he didn’t really  _ feel _ wrong until he realized what was going on, until he was more aware that his classmates did  _ not _ think anything daniel was, daniel had realized about himself, was  _ right. _ his mom kept telling him he was normal- that this was  _ fine, _ and good, and he wasn’t fundamentally different in any way. despite all that-  _ despite _ her support (which he’s eternally grateful for  _ now _ , and always will be) he had started to  _ feel  _ wrong, feel bad, feel all the things his classmates had said jokingly, not realizing what they were saying was absolutely  _ awful.  _ he felt  _ wrong _ and everything fucking  _ sucked. _

 

he’d never really gotten over that, the feeling of feeling  _ wrong, _ had only really felt  _ right _ when he’d meet the boy from daegu behind the bleachers during lunch to talk (and kiss- they had done a lot of kissing in their time together), and all at once daniel snaps back to reality, back to where he’s essentially being used as a pillow, back to where half of his group has gone back to their rooms. 

 

back to where he realizes his gaze has not lifted from sungwoon even  _ once _ and suddenly, everything feels very wrong again. he feels his heart rate spike, panic welling up in his chest, and realizes that he needs to leave-  _ now.  _

 

daniel pushes seongwu off of him, mumbles out a quick “ _ sorry, hyung,”  _ when the elder wakes up with a whine and a pout, and goes to his room as quickly as he possibly can. he was absolutely  _ not _ about to deal with this, not tonight ( _ not ever, _ his mind echoes).

  
  
  


even though he feels like he’s gonna die, daniel finds a sense of relief knowing he can deal with  _ this _ . he’s standing backstage at gocheok, everyone waiting to perform, and yes, he very much feels like he’s about to die. he’s only ever officially performed twice- once on mnet for his A class performance, and one final time at the produce 101 concert, after the show was done and over. neither of those times were to this scale, though. 

 

he feels like he’s going to shake out of his skin, so he does laps backstage as a way to pass time. they’d just found out they’d hit the top of the charts once the hour rolled over, and while daniel is  _ ecstatic _ , he’s too nervous to think about how amazing that is. he will, later, after everything is over and done with.

 

he doesn’t stop pacing until he’s quite literally pushed down an empty hallway, into a secluded corner.

 

“daniel,” sungwoon says, and daniel wants to scream suddenly.

 

“why are we always having conversations like this? can’t we be normal people, who have normal conversations in broad daylight?” daniel says, mainly due to nerves, mainly because he just didn’t  _ get _ it. 

 

“shut up,” is all sungwoon answers with, hand coming up to grip around daniel’s wrist. maybe to comfort him, or maybe to make sure he stayed in place, daniel wasn’t sure. “stop freaking out.”

 

“what do you  _ mean _ stop freaking out. this is  _ gocheok, _ i’ve never  _ done this before,” _ he stresses, restless energy kicking up again. he wanted to- run. dance. do  _ something _ to get all this energy out. “it’s easy for you to say! you’ve done this before!”

 

“not to this scale, daniel,” sungwoon says, voice laced with a slight warning. daniel backs down immediately, mumbling out an apology as quickly as he can. sungwoon rubs his thumb across daniel’s wrist in a way of acceptance, and softens his voice. “you’re going to be fine.  _ we’re _ going to be fine.”

 

“i just- i have all this  _ energy _ and if i don’t get it out i feel like- i feel-”

 

daniel is suddenly cut off by sungwoon backing him up against the wall behind them, reaching up to kiss him. daniel’s brain completely short circuits, thoughts fizzling out like fire splashed by water. sungwoon shifts, pins daniel’s wrists to the wall behind him, forces daniel’s mouth open with his tongue and lets out the prettiest sound daniel thinks he’s ever heard. daniel lets him do all this-  _ wants _ him to do all this. has wanted this to happen again ever since it happened back in the practice room months ago, has thought about this happening again on multiple occasions (at very inconvenient times). he makes an unhappy noise when sungwoon pulls away moments later, eyes fluttering open slowly.

 

“better?” sungwoon asks, still essentially holding daniel down. daniel mentally thanks any god listening that they hadn’t gotten their makeup done yet, knowing if they did it’d be messed up by now. 

 

“yeah,” daniel says, voice breathy, and actually means it. his legs feel kinda like jelly, and his mind is a little hazy, but it’s nice- better than the ball of nerves he was minutes ago _.  _

 

“good,” sungwoon says, releasing daniel’s wrists to adjust the lapels of his jacket. “good,” he repeats, more to himself than daniel. he grabs daniel’s wrist again, dragging him away from the wall and back down the hallway they’d come from. 

 

daniel doesn’t really have time to think about this, about any of this at all, knowing they have to perform soon. part of him doesn’t mind, because talking about this, confirming it’s something real that’s happening seems scarier than the actions just-  _ occuring _ . he pushes it to the back of his mind, and takes a seat next to jaehwan on one of the various couches around the room. 

 

“feeling better?” jaehwan asks, having seen daniel pacing earlier. he’d done nothing, because he’s jaehwan and content to let people do what they want, just passed by with a  _ “be sure to not get dizzy!” _ and left. daniel feels his ears get red, thinking about  _ why _ he feels better, and nods jerkily. he was  _ fine.  _

 

it isn’t long until they’re called up on the catwalk, a mere minutes before he truly becomes wanna one’s kang daniel. when they cheer, and they get on the rising stage, daniel swears his life changes. the lights flash in his mind like some sort of faux club montage, the crowd roars in his memory. he dances his heart out, performs the best he can, and when he’s being pushed off stage all sweaty, tired, and sore, with a beaming smile as bright as the sun, he finally  _ breathes.  _

 

he gets shoved in between jinyoung and jihoon on the way back to the dorm, sitting behind sungwoon. he stares at the back of the elders head, watches as it moves to rest on minhyun’s shoulder halfway through the drive, watches as his breaths even out when minhyun reaches up a hand to card through his hair. 

 

daniel suddenly wishes  _ they _ were that casually affectionate (ignores the thought in his head about sungwoon kissing  _ minhyun _ ), and falls into an unfulfilling sleep the rest of the way home. 

  
  
  


their first performance on a music show goes a little something like this:

 

daniel isn’t nervous, per se, but rather just- confused. he doesn’t know how music shows work despite being on one during produce 101, as he never bothered to take time to memorize the flow of them back then. he remembers bits and pieces, but those have quickly proven to be utterly useless today.

 

everything is still new, still a little weird, but at least sungwoon can help him  _ now.  _ sungwoon  _ knows _ music shows, the etiquette and what’s expected of him, overall has more of an idea than daniel will ever have. and so, he doesn’t feel bad asking for help now, sidling up to a bored looking sungwoon tapping away on his phone. 

 

“hyung,” daniel says, accompanied by a poke to the elders cheek.

 

“yeah, niel,” sungwoon says, voice half interested, half zoned out to focus on his game. he’d been playing it nonstop lately with minhyun, and daniel can’t begin to understand the logistics of what went on.

 

“i’m b _ ooored,” _ he whines out, just a little childish and a lot petulant. he pokes the elders cheek once more for good measure and mentally cheers when sungwoon’s mouth quirks up, showing off his dimple. he takes a seat next to sungwoon, and leans on him heavily. sungwoon ignores him for the most part, still tapping away at his phone. “what do you even  _ do _ at music shows,” daniel asks.

 

“you wait,” sungwoon responds flatly, cursing when he dies on screen and minhyun laughs from across the room. “you wait, and wait, and wait until suddenly you don’t anymore,” he says, voice a little rough from him no doubt being upset over his loss, sending another invite to minhyun in the process. 

 

“okay but- what do  _ i _ do,” daniel asks, leaning his head on sungwoon’s shoulder. 

 

“take a nap,” sungwoon offers, shouting when he wins this round and it’s minhyun’s turn to sulk. he jostles daniel and the younger whines at the disruption, sungwoon bringing his hand up to pat daniel’s head comfortingly. “i’ll wake you up in like, an hour,” he adds. 

 

and an hour- an hour sounds like a  _ dream _ to daniel. there was a time in his life where an hour nap seemed not worth it, where he’d be able to fall asleep in the middle of the day for easily three hours uninterrupted. but now, the daniel  _ now _ , thinks an hour is a perfect nap _. _

 

“kay,” daniel says after a minute, effectively dragging sungwoon to lay down with him on the couch they were sitting on. he ignores the elder’s noise of protest, and gets comfortable, wrapping himself around sungwoon. they’re essentially spooning, have to be with how narrow the couch is, and daniel ignores the pounding of his heart in favor of reaching over to lay his arm across sungwoon’s waist.

 

“daniel i’m not acting as your stand in teddy bear,” sungwoon says, voice a little incredulous. he’s finally shut off his phone, craning his head back so he can look at daniel.

 

“but i’m comfortable,” daniel says with a pout, one he knows few people ever actually do resist, and rests his cheek on sungwoon’s shoulder. “you’re tiny, and good to hold, hyung.”

 

“shut  _ up,” _ sungwoon says, making no move to extract himself from daniel in any way. daniel smiles down at him, and moves his head back to the couch to get comfortable. he tangles his legs with sungwoon’s (much to the dismay of the elder) and falls asleep quickly. 

 

days pass, days of daniel still cuddling up to sungwoon while he sleeps, days of seongwu making fun of them and effectively getting flipped off by sungwoon. 

 

tonight they’re up for an award, and daniel doesn’t know how to feel. he’s nervous, and jittery, but excited all at once. 

 

they perform, and they wait ( _ always waiting _ , as sungwoon had said), and eventually get called up on stage for the award ceremony. they get to stand in the front this time, since they’re nominated, and daniel feels  _ cool. _ daniel zones out as the mc’s start presenting the awards, dragging it out, before finally a name is called. 

 

daniel doesn’t know what’s going on. he doesn’t know who just won, but he’s being pulled into a hug by sungwoon and minhyun, so he assumes it’s them. he throws an arm around sungwoon, and feels an arm wrap around his waist in return. he distantly hears jisung making a speech thanking wannables over all the yelling and commotion, and- and then it finally hits daniel. they just  _ won.  _

 

the finale goes smoothly, just the 11 of them messing around on stage for the whole song, and daniel feels  _ happy, _ buzzing bright with an emotion he can’t name. he makes a mental note to call his mom when they get back to the green room despite the hour, wanting her to know how they did. 

 

as they’re all piling into the van later, daniel catches sungwoon looking hesitant, looking a little lost and out of place, and tilts his head in confusion. they just  _ won, _ so why did he look so- confused? 

 

it’s later that night when daniel can't sleep for the life of him. the thrill of winning, of having enough people supporting them to get a win in the first place _ ,  _ has daniel's mind reeling, nerves alight with  _ something  _ he can't name _.  _ he tosses and turns for an hour, before seongwu yells at him to shut up and be quiet, and decides against trying to sleep altogether.

 

making his way out of his shared room with jisung and seongwu, he decides to step outside onto the balcony, and nearly jumps out of his skin when he sees someone already sitting out there. 

 

"you're always so jumpy," sungwoon comments from where he's curled up on one of the deck chairs. "i didn't even pull you into a dark room or bust open a door this time. i was just sitting here,” sungwoon isn't looking at him, but rather out across the street to the buildings in front of them. he looks exhausted, and daniel doesn't like it in the slightest.

 

"why are you awake?" daniel asks,  taking a seat next to sungwoon. it wasn't ideal, sungwoon being out here, when daniel came out to think and process in the first place, but he figures he can work with it.

 

"just thinkin'," sungwoon says, voice full of something daniel can't recognize. he sounds- well, he sounds more tired than he looks. worry spikes in daniel's heart, and he brings his legs up to his chest. they had gotten close lately, closer than they were before, and daniel thinks it’s partially due to being debuted now, and partially to do with this weird magnetism that seemed to be between them.

 

"about what?" daniel asks, voice soft. he doesn't know what sungwoon is about to lay on him, doesn't know what the course of his night is about to be like in the slightest. he watches as sungwoon licks his lips, watches as the elder sinks down in his seat, crossed hands coming up to rest on his stomach.

 

sungwoon lets out a sigh, and asks a simple question. it catches daniel off guard- so suddenly, so completely that daniel thinks he’s imagining it for a moment.

 

"do you ever feel like you're not meant to be somewhere?" he says, and daniel suddenly realizes the vulnerability of the situation. knows this isn’t about to be something daniel can just brush off after the conversation is over. "like- just, where you've ended up, you think maybe someone made a mistake somewhere?"

 

daniel is quiet for a beat, watching sungwoon's face. he watches as sungwoon bites his bottom lip, watches as a flicker of uncertainty ( _ the same look from the practice room, weeks ago, before debut, and the same one from tonight, daniel realizes) _ flashes across his face, like he was second guessing saying anything at all. "what do you mean?" daniel finally asks, resting his chin on a knee. he decides to keep his voice light, despite the panic welling inside him. 

 

"i mean- i think- i don't think i was supposed to be in wanna one," sungwoon says, voice quiet, like he was trying to prevent  _ himself _ from hearing his own words. he blinks rapidly, and moves so he's looking up at the sky instead of ahead of him. "i just think everyone has a place here but me, sometimes, you know? like maybe i wasn’t  _ supposed  _ to be eleventh. that’s what people say online, you know."

 

daniel blanches- it's so candid, so  _ raw  _ and honest, daniel doesn't know how to react. he was expecting something else, something less- intense, heavy. sungwoon doesn't give him time to reply, voicing another thought before daniel can ask where all of this was coming from.

 

"and you know, like, the kids. they don't really come to me for advice or anything. which isn't really a big deal, in the grand scheme of things, but it  _ feels _ like a big deal. it feels like- it feels like i'm being left out of something. they go to minhyunnie, or jisung hyung, and i'm just stuck in the middle wondering why not  _ me. _ and maybe it’s childish, but i just want to feel… included?

 

“and then there's personal schedules- how mostly everyone's gotten them but me, and it's like... it's like i'm successful in this big picture sense, but  _ am i?"  _ he says, and daniel feels like crying suddenly. he doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know how to begin to think of an answer. he didn’t know sungwoon felt so bad- so  _ unsure _ and suddenly understands every weird look sungwoon has worn on his face, all his weird moods and overconfidence to overcompensate lately.

 

“its fine,” sungwoon says suddenly, clearing his throat. daniel’s eyes don’t leave his face. “i’m okay with this, in a way, but it’s nice to have someone listen for once. taehyun’s been busy lately, so i haven’t really had anyone to talk to.”

 

“sungwoon hyung-“

 

“don’t,” sungwoon stops him short. he turns his head so he can give daniel a smile, and it’s so devastating daniel thinks he really does tear up. none of this was  _ fair, _ daniel thought, none of this made sense. good people didn’t deserve to feel so-  _ shit _ . “it happens, niel. it happens. it’s okay,” he assures.

 

daniel just stares at sungwoon, suddenly feeling very very small, like he’s years younger than he is. he feels guilty, guilty that sungwoon has been feeling like this, guilty that he can’t- isn’t being  _ allowed  _ to help. he watches as sungwoon gets up, pats daniel’s shoulder comfortingly (like daniel’s the one who needs the comfort, like daniel just poured his heart out for all the stars in the sky to hear), and heads back inside. 

 

daniel doesn’t know how long he stays outside on the balcony, not moving. he doesn’t get any sleep that night, and goes through his schedules surviving on caffeine alone. he sticks close to sungwoon despite the elder calling him a leech, and makes obnoxious kissy faces until he gets a smile out of him. 

  
  
  


they’re allowed a week off after energetic promotions end, and with it daniel goes home to busan for the first time since produce 101 ended. 

 

he’s excited to be home, to be able to spend time with his mom and peter and rooney again. the first three days he spends sleeping and lazing around, eating anything his mom cooks for him, and playing games with jihoon online. 

 

it’s on the fourth day when he gets a facetime call from sungwoon.

 

he’s not expecting it, having barely talked to the elder while daniel’s been home besides a picture sungwoon had sent him of a few stray cats he’d seen outside a cafe back in seoul. he nearly jumps out of his skin as his phone rings, and stares at the caller id for a solid minute.

 

“are you gonna pick up?” his mom says from where she’s sitting on the opposite side of the couch, amusement in her voice. “or are you just gonna leave whoever that is hanging?”

 

“ _ mom,” _ daniel whines, picking his phone up from the armrest and answering the call. sungwoon’s face flashes on screen, the elder looking like he just woke up. he’s outside though, walking through the streets and daniel suddenly wonders if he’s gone home or stayed in the city. 

 

“hi hyung,” daniel says, small smile on his face. “where are you right now? did you go home?”

 

“no,” the elder says as he crosses the street, phone shaking slightly as he jogs. one headphone falls out and he groans as he puts it back in. “i’m still in seoul,” sungwoon says, and all at once daniel  _ feels _ his mom perk up next to him.

 

“is that sungwoonie?” she asks, leaning over to see daniel’s screen.

 

“yes, mom,” daniel says, suffering look on his face despite moving closer so she could be seen in the call window. “hyung, she’s asked how you are everyday i’ve been here. please assure her you’re fine because she doesn’t believe me.”

 

at this, sungwoon laughs loud and bright, smiling widely for them to see. “i’m okay, ms. kang. i’ve been resting!” he says, still smiling. he lets out a soft  _ “hold on,” _ as he enters a cafe. as sungwoon gives the barista his order, daniel’s mom whispers a soft  _ “i’m inviting him over,” _ and daniel hisses out a  _ “absolutely not?” _ but just by the look on her face he knows she’s serious. 

 

“alright, anyway,” sungwoon says, bringing the phone back up to his face. “how have you guys been?” he asks.

 

“daniel hasn’t stopped sleeping since he got here,” daniel’s mom says sufferingly, before daniel himself can say anything. daniel groans out a  _ “i’m tired!” _ which causes sungwoon to laugh, happy and bright. “you know, sungwoonie, you should come here,” she says, and daniel feels his entire face heat up. this was  _ mortifying. _

 

“hm? like… now?” sungwoon asks, eyes going off screen to accept whatever he ordered from the barista with a thanks. “sure, i can be there tonight?” he seems unfazed, so completely and utterly, daniel wonders  _ why. _

 

“what?” daniel says, a little incredulous. “hyung- no- don’t listen to my  _ mom, _ what the fuck.” he accepts the smack from his mother at his language, and stares at her with wide eyes, as if to say  _ “what have you done?” _

 

“it’s not like i have anything better to do, everyone i could go visit is either on vacation out of the country, or busy,” sungwoon says, making his way back outside, undoubtedly to go back to the dorm. “do you not want to see me that bad, kang daniel?” he says, mirth filling his voice. 

 

“i see you everyday!” daniel exclaims, mind reeling. sungwoon was going to be  _ here- _ in his hometown,  _ tonight?  _

 

“daniel will come get you, just let us know when you’re on the way,” daniel’s mom says, getting up and laughing when daniel groans miserably. this whole thing was so  _ embarrassing _ . “what do you like to eat?” she asks, voice louder to accomodate how far away she’d walked.

 

“anything’s fine!” sungwoon says happily, joining in on laughing at daniel at the look on the younger’s face. he looked so fundamentally unimpressed, so genuinely done with the entire situation that it was amusing. “see you soon, niel. don’t be late picking me up!” 

 

and then he hung up, leaving daniel staring at a black phone screen. 

 

“what the  _ fuck,” _ daniel whispered to himself, getting up to start cleaning and getting ready for sungwoon’s arrival.

 

daniel manages to clean the entire house, shower, and set up where sungwoon’s going to sleep before sungwoon even texts him he’s getting on the train. daniel is left sitting on his living room couch, leg bouncing restlessly as he stares at the wall in front of him. 

 

“daniel,” he hears his mom say from the kitchen, no doubt getting something ready for sungwoon when he arrives. daniel hums, eyes not leaving the wall. “your leg is gonna fall of if you keep bouncing it so much.”

 

“sorry,” daniel says, continuing to bounce his leg anyway. he rubs his hands on his pants, and takes a deep breath. “is it dumb to show him around? like is that stupid?”

 

“are you asking me… if it’s dumb to show your friend around busan?” his mom asks, turning and placing a fist on her hip. she looks unimpressed.

 

“yes? no? maybe? i don’t know,” he says, moving his head so he can finally look at her. “i don’t even know if we’re friends,” he says.

 

“what do you mean?” she asks, voice going softer around the edges, sounding ready to give advice. daniel feels his heart rate spike, and takes a deep breath.

 

“okay so like- okay. back during produce 101, the night before the finale, we like- we kissed? and it was like a “ _ in case we never see each other again” _ thing, he said… and then before debut at gocheok, it happened again. and like, it’s fine. it’s fine because it probably doesn’t mean anything, but we haven’t talked about it, or had time to, and now i’m just here thinking he’s going to bring it up,” daniel rushes out, hands flapping around to try and explain himself better. “so, i don’t know what to do,” he finishes awkwardly. 

 

daniel’s mom is quiet for a minute, processing everything daniel just said. 

 

“well. how do  _ you _ feel about it?” she says, going back to chopping vegetables. daniel was grateful she wasn’t treating this like something big and life changing, rather going about it like daniel just told her he was going for a walk later. 

 

“i don’t  _ know. _ like it’s nice, and i like it? but it’s… confusing. i don’t know where we stand, if anything’s any different, or if i should be  _ acting _ like it is. i don’t know,” daniel responds, slumping down on the couch. “boys are so confusing, mom.”

 

she laughs suddenly, turning to daniel once again. “they sure are,” she says, and raises her eyebrows when daniel’s phone pings from next to him. daniel checks it, confirming it’s sungwoon telling him he’s 5 minutes away, and gives his mom a panicked look. “we can talk more about this later. go get him so i can finally feed him.” 

 

daniel exhales shakily, wipes his hands on his pants one more time, and stands up. he makes his way out the door and calls out a thanks to his mom, promising to be back soon.

 

he makes his way out of the building, down the street, and focuses on his breathing. it wasn’t a big deal. it  _ wasn’t _ . just a friend coming to see another friend at the place they grew up, place all their memories were formed, place that was so fundamental in shaping them to be the person they were today.

 

it was fine. daniel was fine, and totally wasn’t overthinking any of this.

 

daniel takes his time, weaving through the streets he knows so well, breathing in the cool night air. it was fall now, warm during the day but starting to get colder at night, and daniel almost regrets going out without a jacket. but it’s nice, if he thinks about it long enough, just biting enough to keep him level, keep his mind clear. 

 

arriving to the train station, daniel adjusts his mask, the hat on his head, and shifts anxiously. it was late, there weren’t many people around, but daniel still got nervous about possibly being recognized. the train finally pulls up, and daniel feels his heart stop. this was fine, everything was  _ fine. _ he watches as sungwoon gets off the train holding a duffle bag, watches as he stands on tiptoes to look for daniel, and smiles happily when he spots him. daniel raises his hand in a way of greeting, and immediately shoves his hands back in his pockets. he wasn’t freaking out. 

 

sungwoon makes his way over, weaving through the crowd, and it’s then when daniel finally gets a good look at what the elder is wearing. it’s a hoodie, one that’s way too big for sungwoon’s small frame, and daniel’s brain fizzles out and ignites all at once. 

 

“is- is that my hoodie?” daniel says in way of greeting when sungwoon walks up to him, mind reeling slightly. 

 

sungwoon tilts his head in confusion, looks down at himself, and gives daniel a wide smile. “i think so,” he says, like it’s nothing, like it means nothing, and daniel wants to believe him. “just found it on the couch on my way out, figured it’d be cold so i took it. sorry,” he says with a shrug. daniel nods, and does not panic. 

 

they walk in silence, daniel carrying sungwoon’s duffle bag to be polite, and daniel almost startles out of his skin when sungwoon bumps into him as a way to snap him out of his own thoughts. the younger looks down to find sungwoon biting his lip, almost nervously.

 

“you’re being quiet. did you really not want me to come?” he asks, looking up at daniel. he looks uncertain, for a minute, and daniel realizes he doesn’t like that look at all. he rushes to reassure the elder. 

 

“no, i wanted-  _ want _ you here. i was just embarrassed cause like, my mom,” he says, and he’s not lying. he’s just- he’s nervous. he doesn’t want to have the conversation that’s been looming over them for weeks. 

 

“ah,” sungwoon replies, like he can sense daniel is hiding something from him. he doesn’t push, and bumps into daniel once more for good measure. he sends daniel a smile, and daniel can’t help but give him one back, even if it is a little weak. 

 

they arrive back to daniel’s house in no time, and daniel suddenly feels nervous all over again. nervous for sungwoon to be around his mom, his mom who now knows that they’ve kissed, his mom who knows everything about daniel, probably knows exactly how he’s feeling better than he does. 

 

“we’re back!” daniel calls out, and drops sungwoon’s stuff by the front door. they could deal with it later. he picks up rooney on the way to the kitchen and gives her a flurry of kisses despite her meow of protest, and hears sungwoon laugh behind him. he moves out of the way so his mom can give sungwoon a hug, and whines out an embarrassed  _ “mooom” _ when she pinches one of sungwoon’s cheeks like he’s her own son. sungwoon smiles widely anyway, thanks her for letting him into their house, and ducks his head with a blush when she says he’s allowed over any time. 

 

their dinner goes by smoothly, mainly just daniel’s mom and sungwoon talking, and they get on well- better than daniel expected, if he was being honest. it’s late, nearing 10, and daniel wants nothing more than to just lay down (he’s been doing that nonstop for three days but- he doesn’t do it nearly enough outside of here that he feels bad about doing it so much  _ now _ ). he cleans up the plates and bowls, and shakes his head at sungwoon’s offer to help, giving him a look when the elder tries anyway. they bicker for a minute, all while daniel’s mom watches with a soft smile on her face, and daniel eventually wins in the end, sungwoon sitting down sulkily. 

 

daniel finally moves sungwoon’s stuff from the doorway, bringing it into his room and setting it on his bed. sungwoon follows behind him and looks at him in confusion. 

 

“you’re getting my bed, and i’ll like, take the floor,” daniel says as way of an explanation, motioning to the makeshift bed he’s made on the floor. he watches as sungwoon looks between the bed and the floor a few times, before shaking his head.

 

“i’m not just- i won’t just sleep in your  _ bed,” _ sungwoon says stubbornly, arms crossing over his chest. 

 

“well too bad? because you’re going to?” daniel says, mimicking sungwoon’s stance. he furrows his eyebrows to try and look serious, and tries with everything in him to not laugh. “sleep in my bed.”

 

“absolutely not,” sungwoon says, moving closer so he could poke daniel’s chest. “i won’t do it, not while you’re on the floor.”

 

“then i’ll go to the couch,” daniel says, poking sungwoon’s chest back. this was ridiculous, completely and utterly, and daniel was going to laugh any second. 

 

“absolutely not!” sungwoon repeats with more emphasis this time. he stares up at daniel with the angriest look he can muster. “bed or you’re not sleeping.”

 

“what, so you want me to sleep in the bed  _ with you? _ because you sure aren’t sleeping anywhere else,” daniel says, freezing minutely when he realizes what he just offered. it’s like sungwoon can sense the change in mood, and sighs.

 

“i’m taking the floor, and as your hyung, i demand you let me. don’t be disrespectful,” sungwoon says, grabbing his bag and plopping it on the floor. he gives daniel a look, one that just  _ begging _ daniel to challenge him. 

 

daniel groans loudly, and mumbles a  _ “can’t just pull the hyung card to win fights,” _ and sungwoon laughs and shakes his head in disbelief at the situation. they get ready for bed soon after, and while daniel  _ should _ be used to getting changed in front of sungwoon at this point, he still feels his ears heat up as he pulls his shirt over his head. 

 

daniel feels endlessly guilty as he lays in bed, the bed  _ sungwoon _ was supposed to sleep in, and forces himself to fall asleep soon after sungwoon bids him goodnight. 

 

he’s awoken with a start four hours later to sungwoon jumping on top of him, the elder giggling when daniel curses. “let’s go to the beach,” he says, and daniel squints up at him, convinced this is some kind of weird dream.

 

“huh?” daniel says intelligently, voice rough and deeper than normal. he can’t even fully open his eyes, still feeling like he was in that in between of being awake and asleep. “what time is it?”

 

“the beach, daniel, i wanna go,” sungwoon says, hands coming up to rest on daniel’s chest. he’s sitting on top of daniel at this point, legs on either side of his hips. “it’s-” he pauses. looks over at daniel’s bedside clock. “2:32, and i want to go to the beach.”

 

“tomorrow,” daniel groans, folding the pillow over his face. an awake daniel would probably be freaking out at sungwoon’s position right now, but this daniel was  _ tired, _ and didn’t care about  _ anything.  _

 

“no, right now. we can’t go during the day, there’ll be people,” sungwoon says matter of factly, voice slightly petulant. “c’mo _ nnn _ ,” he begs.

 

daniel groans, knowing he was going to lose this fight, just like he lost the last one only hours prior. “kay,” he says defeatedly, propping himself up on his elbows to try and wake up fully. he pouts sleepily when sungwoon pats his cheek and gets off of him, and yawns wide enough his jaw cracks moments later. he gets up slowly, and grabs the nearest sweatshirt he can find. he doesn’t bother changing out of his sweats, and does a double take when he looks over to see sungwoon wearing his hoodie again. 

 

“beach isn’t even that great,” daniel mumbles bitterly, making his way out of his room, sungwoon trailing behind him. he grabs his keys from the rack by the front door, and yawns once again. he doesn’t know why he agreed to this in the first place, and they hadn’t even left daniel’s house yet. 

 

sungwoon ignores him, and follows daniel as they make their way out of the building and start on the walk to the beach. it wasn’t far, not when daniel was surrounded by water, and for the second time that night sungwoon bumps into him as a way of starting a conversation. 

 

“are you mad i wanna see the beach?” sungwoon asks, voice light. daniel can tell even if he said yes, sungwoon wouldn’t care, not really.

 

“no,” he says despite that, and pulls his hood up to cover his head. he was just  _ cold _ and  _ tired.  _ “‘m not mad. tired yes, but not mad,” he clarifies.

 

sungwoon hums, and they lapse back into silence. it doesn’t take long for them to get to the shoreline, and daniel breathes in the sea air. it’s been a long time since he’s been to the ocean, he realizes with a start, and he steps down onto the sand. 

 

“coming?” daniel asks as he walks backwards towards the ocean, staring up at where sungwoon was still standing on the pier. he was losing some of his tiredness now, like the sea was curing it, and he feels clear headed for the first time since sungwoon’s arrived. 

 

“yeah,” sungwoon says after a beat, like he was lost in thought, and jumps down to join daniel. “it’s pretty,” he says quietly, staring out at the ocean that was illuminated by the building lights behind them. 

 

daniel nods, even if sungwoon can’t see, and plops down on the sand, legs coming up towards his chest. he wraps his arms around his legs, resting his chin on a knee, and sighs in what sounds like relief. he feels-  _ calm. _

 

sungwoon joins him moments later, sitting close enough daniel can feel the heat emanating off him. he reaches out, a little hesitant in his movements, and grabs one of daniel’s arms, pulling it away from where it was wrapped around his legs. he reaches down, lacing his fingers with daniel’s, and all at once daniel feels his heart stop. 

 

they’re quiet, finding no need to speak, even if daniel has a million things, a million questions running through his mind right now. daniel stretches his legs out, and distinctly does not focus on how well sungwoon’s hand fits in his own. the sand is cold underneath them, and daniel lets out a shiver. he momentarily panics at the thought of someone seeing, of someone finding out, but calms down when sungwoon squeezes his hand, as if sensing his stress. 

 

he doesn’t know how it happens, really. 

 

one minute they were sitting, holding hands, and the next sungwoon was in his lap, holding his face between his hands gently. daniel feels his breath stutter and come to a stop in his chest, blinking a few times in confusion. sungwoon’s hands were cold where they rested, touch so gentle daniel didn’t think he nearly deserved being handled with so much care.

 

the next few minutes are so painfully slow, so absolutely and completely world tilting, daniel knows it’s going to be burned into his brain forever, for as long as he lives. he feels as if he’s outside himself, watching from above, as sungwoon leans down, puffs of air hitting daniel’s lips. he takes his time (because they  _ can,  _ daniel realizes) _ , _ and daniel thinks his heart is going to stop beating before sungwoon’s lips even get to connect. 

 

but they do, eventually. it’s so gentle at first, just a brush of his lips against daniel’s own, daniel could almost convince himself he’s imagining it. the pressure increases as time passes, and daniel thinks -not for the first time- how nice it is to kiss sungwoon. 

 

“hyung,” daniel breathes out when sungwoon pulls away moments later, eyes still closed. “hyung,” he repeats, like it’s the only word he actually knows, and his eyes flutter open slowly. he smiles a little dopily when sungwoon rubs a thumb over his cheek, so softly daniel thinks he could cry, maybe. 

 

“niel,” sungwoon says, leaning down to kiss daniel again, harder this time, less soft and more intense. one of his hands moves down to his shoulder, pushing gently, and daniel falls back slowly, back eventually meeting the sand. sungwoon follows him, lips never disconnecting. daniel opens his mouth when sungwoon prompts him to, content to let the elder control everything for now.

 

he whines when sungwoon pulls away from his mouth, but lets out a hum when sungwoon moves to kiss along his jaw, down his neck. he hears sungwoon hiss out a  _ “so fucking perfect,” _ and doesn’t say anything- doesn’t think he was meant to hear anything at all in the first place. he gasps when sungwoon nips at his neck, light enough so he leaves no mark, but hard enough to catch daniel off guard. daniel thinks he asks for more, thinks he essentially begs for it, and whines again when sungwoon lets out a laugh, coming back up to look at him.

 

daniel’s just a little fuzzy, mind just a little hazy like it always gets when he kisses sungwoon, and he reaches up a hand to tangle in the hair at the back of the elders head. he blinks slowly, almost lazily up at sungwoon, and smiles.

 

“you look wrecked. barely even did anything,” sungwoon notes offhandedly, thumb coming up to wipe the corner of daniel’s mouth. he gives daniel a smile, soft and slow, and daniel feels his heart rate spike. sungwoon was-  _ beautiful.  _

 

“‘s nice though,” daniel responds after a minute, mouth feeling vaguely cottony. “you should do more of… that,” he says.

 

“sure,” sungwoon says, leaning back down to kiss daniel again.

 

daniel doesn’t know how long they lay there- could be hours, or maybe only merely half of that, but he realizes suddenly and all at once that he wants this to be a  _ thing _ . a thing they can do, when time allows. a thing that could morph into something else, eventually. 

 

if daniel’s mom notices them leaving to go to the beach in the middle of the night for the remaining days they have off, she doesn’t comment. only sends daniel knowing looks over breakfast when he’s practically falling asleep at the table, and sends them off to go explore the rest of the city during the day. 

 

they go back to seoul that monday, and absolutely do not talk about anything that happened in busan. 


	3. three

it's the night of mama hong kong when everything that’s been building up for months finally overflows. 

 

daniel’s been sitting in the makeup chair for what seems like hours, obediently closing his eyes and turning his head this way and that as the makeup artist brushes the 50th layer of black eyeshadow onto his lids, blending in with the multitudes of browns and greys as well. the air is heavy around him, the tension obvious in the way the members talk quietly amongst themselves versus the chaoticness of how they usually are.

 

“go now,” the stylist waves him off, gesturing a nearby jaehwan into the chair.

 

daniel exhales slowly as his bones crack when he stretches, nervously smiling at jisung who looks at him worriedly. “walk around, nyelie. get yourself some water. oh, and get sungwoonie while you’re at it, i think he’s with jongin and jimin? you look good, by the way,” he tacks onto the end, giving daniel a soft smile.

 

daniel nods with a  _ thanks _ , leaving the room to stretch his legs some more and wander the halls as the speakers overhead warn the staff of the fans who are allowed to finally come in. he has about 20 minutes or so before the night begins, so he starts to search for sungwoon.

 

“daniel!”

 

he turns to find chanyeol waving him close, a smile breaking out on his face as he’s pulled into a hug. they catch up for a bit, talking of their latest endeavours and releases, before sungwoon finally enters the conversation with jimin and jongin at his side.

 

“hi,” daniel greets them, albiet a little shyly, before turning to sungwoon. “we need to go soon, jisung hyung says so.”

 

sungwoon doesn’t respond, just continues to look at him from head to toe, igniting  _ something _ in daniel. the look on his face is unreadable, his eyes dark. the others wave them off after saying their goodbyes, wishing them luck for tonight. 

 

daniel does his best in ignoring the weird tension that's sprung up between him and sungwoon, pointedly looking at everything  _ except _ him as he leads them down the hall to their waiting room. he can't decipher what sungwoon’s look means in the slightest. luckily, he finds out pretty quickly what it  _ could _ mean. 

 

“niel,” sungwoon says right before they reach the door to the waiting room, hand reaching out to brush against daniel’s wrist. he doesn't even have to hold onto daniel for the younger to stop in his tracks, head turning to give him a questioning look. “you look good,” is what sungwoon says, voice quiet like he didn't want anyone else to hear. like it was just for them. 

 

there's an underlying meaning there, daniel knows, one he doesn't have time to figure out right now- one he doesn't know if he  _ wants _ to figure out. he smiles a half smile anyway, letting out a soft  _ “thanks hyung,” _ and pushes open the door to the waiting room before sungwoon can say anything else. 

 

mama is a blur, performing is second nature, and before daniel knows it, it's already almost over. most of wanna one have migrated somewhere else, gone to sit with friends they've made over the months. woojin and jihoon are still nearby, only a few seats down, but daniel doesn’t feel like joining them in whatever nonsensical conversation they seem to be having at the moment. 

 

he feels a tap on his shoulder a few seconds later, and turns to see sungwoon smiling down at him. he looks up at the elder questioningly, tilting his head slightly, but still smiles back all the same. 

 

“bathroom?” sungwoon asks, thumb rubbing over daniel’s shoulder where his hand never quite left. he’s not really looking  _ at _ daniel, moreso through him, and daniel nods. it wasn’t unusual for them to go to the bathroom as groups at award shows,  so daniel doesn’t think anything of it. 

 

he gets up, stretching in the process and groaning when his bones pop. following sungwoon, they make small talk about how they feel the performance went, how other groups performances were, and eventually end up in the bathroom. daniel watches in confusion as sungwoon checks all the stalls, making sure no one was with them.

 

“hyung?” daniel questions, head tilting much like it did a few minutes prior when sungwoon came up to him. his eyes follow sungwoon back across the bathroom, to where he’s gone and locked the door. 

 

“fuck,” sungwoon breathes out, looking across the room to daniel. he makes his way over to the younger in a few strides, reaching out to fix one of the lapels on daniel’s suit (that honestly doesn’t need fixing) and sighs. “fuck,” he says again. 

 

“are you… okay?” daniel asks, feeling concern wash over him. sungwoon looks frazzled the more daniel looks at him, and he frowns. he thinks back to anything that might’ve happened earlier today, but comes up empty. 

 

“‘m good,” sungwoon says, still fiddling with daniel’s lapels like he was- nervous? 

 

“then why are we currently… locked in the bathroom?” daniel says, eyes flicking to the door. what if someone tried to come  _ in?  _

 

“because you look really fucking hot and i kinda just wanna… make out with you right now?” sungwoon responds, voice lilting up at the end in a question. daniel is shocked into silence, not expecting the conversation to go  _ there, _ but he figures it makes sense with how sungwoon was looking at him earlier. 

 

daniel's life is a series of waiting, he’s learned. waiting to see if he’d passed auditions, waiting to see who’d win produce 101, waiting for schedules to end, waiting to perform. waiting for conversations he’s not even sure will ever happen.

 

daniel’s been waiting a long time, for a lot of things. sungwoon makes sure he doesn’t have to wait too long for this, though. 

 

sungwoon leans up, pausing right before he connects with daniel’s lips, the two of them seemingly suspended in time. neither moves, too caught up in just being near each other. they haven’t done  _ this, _ the making out, the fooling around, in  _ months. _ there’s the added pressure of being in  _ public, _ how anyone could call someone to get the door unlocked any second, how they haven’t even done anything yet and they’re already in a compromising position. 

 

sungwoon leans in further, finally connecting their lips, and lets out a soft sound. he nudges daniel slightly, so the younger walks back towards the outside of one of the stalls, back bumping up against it. sungwoon moves his hands to either side of daniel’s body, effectively caging him in, and lets out another soft sound when daniel moves his hands to sungwoon’s hips. 

 

sungwoon licks into daniel's mouth desperately, groaning when daniel lets him easily. “missed this,” sungwoon breathes out when they part for air moments later, sounding just as desperate as his actions make him seem. daniel would be lying if he said he didn't miss this, too. 

 

daniel dives back in without answering, pulling sungwoon's hips closer so they were flush against daniel’s own. he has a momentary thought that his makeup is going to be messed up, but in the moment all he cared about was kissing sungwoon. 

 

it was easy, daniel thought, to get lost in the rhythm of kissing sungwoon. easy to get lost in it, easy to forget where he was or what he was doing moments prior. easy to not  _ think,  _ with sungwoon. 

 

that's why it’s not  _ really _ his fault when he starts grinding down on sungwoon's thigh that's between his legs. he was just- lost in the moment. yeah. 

 

“not here,” sungwoon says between kisses, moving from kissing daniel’s lips to across his jaw, down his neck. daniel thinks it's kinda  _ mean  _ how his words contradict his actions. 

 

“ _ not here,” _ daniel mocks, voice losing some punch due to how wound up he was.  “then stop shoving your fuckin’ thigh into my dick,” he grumbles, head thumping back when sungwoon nips at his neck. 

 

“are you always this mouthy when you get hard?” sungwoon asks, stopping to look at daniel like he was genuinely curious. daniel rolls his eyes, mumbling something unintelligible under his breath, and grabs the back of sungwoons head. he pulls him closer, stopping right before their lips connect to just  _ breathe.  _ “you know, when we get back to korea, we can- we can figure something out,” sungwoon whispers. 

 

“figure something out?” daniel whispers back, eyes flicking from sungwoon’s own back down to his lips. 

 

“yeah,” sungwoon breathes out, head inching forward just the slightest. “doesn't have to be anything serious. just for fun,” he adds. 

 

daniel feels his brain fizzle out slightly, mind stuttering to a stop. it was one thing to makeout with sungwoon when time allowed- that was fun and good and  _ great.  _ it was entirely something  _ else _ to- to? hook up? fool around?  _ fuck.  _

 

daniel’s terrified at how he's not against it in the slightest. 

 

daniel nods a little desperately before reconnecting his mouth with sungwoon’s. he moves his hand up to sungwoon’s hair, threading his fingers through it and pulling the elder desperately against him. he doesn't know how long they spend making out this time, but it's long enough that daniel can start to hear chatter outside the door. he pulls away slowly, like it pains him (and truthfully, maybe it does). he straightens up, letting out a long sigh and smiles down at sungwoon. daniel feels happy and loose, calmer than he has in a while. 

 

he lets sungwoon fuss over his clothes, thanking the elder when sungwoon is satisfied that daniel doesn't look like, well, he was making out in a backstage bathroom. he returns the favor by fixing sungwoon’s hair and smiles happily when everything looks back to normal. he chances a look in the mirror and frowns slightly at the state of his face makeup, most of it having rubbed off in the process of kissing sungwoon. at least sungwoon looks better than he does- less suspicious. sungwoon parts from daniel, going over to unlock the bathroom door, pulling it open and looking back to daniel. 

 

“c’mon we better go before jisungie hyung realizes we’ve been gone so long,” he says, not leaving room for daniel to protest with how he's already halfway out the door. 

 

daniel follows, smiling to himself when sungwoon places a hand on his lower back while they're walking. they make small talk, and bow to other idols as they pass them, acting like they  _ weren't  _ just making out. 

 

if you had to ask, daniel’s never been so excited to go back to korea in his life. 

  
  
  


daniel’s thought a lot about sucking dick, if he had to be honest. 

 

about what it’d feel like (giving and receiving), about what it'd taste like (probably not  _ all _ that great, if he was being honest), just what it’d be like. he’d never had an opportunity to, in the first place. and he’s been with guys- or rather, some random guy he’d met at a club once back when he was a trainee and- well. jinwoo.

 

with the random guy, it’d been awkward, and daniel had left feeling weird and unfulfilled. the guy was obviously inexperienced with other guys, and daniel didn’t  _ really _ mind it was just- it was weird, and not worth it. something he pushed to the back of his mind and forgot about almost immediately after. 

 

with jinwoo, it was a whole different story. the elder had casually asked him one night, when taewoong had already gone to bed. a casual  _ “hey, we should hook up sometime,”  _  and daniel’s brain had effectively short circuited, sputtered out a  _ “what?”  _ and was forced to watch as jinwoo rolled his eyes.

 

“you’re not subtle, never are, niel” jinwoo had said, patting his cheek. it had ice running through daniel's veins, ready to bolt at any second.

 

“stop freaking out,” he’d said. daniel felt his heartbeat in his throat, felt like he was going to pass out at any minute. he was  _ terrified _ jinwoo was just messing with him. as if hearing his thoughts, he’d continued with, “you can say no, but i’m not just fucking with you. just come find me if you ever want, you know where i am,” and then he got up and left, effectively leaving daniel alone with his thoughts.

 

it took daniel two weeks to approach jinwoo, took him two weeks to work up the courage to even think about asking the words he wanted to. he'd stood outside jinwoo's door, debating, for a solid five minutes before finally making up his mind. in the end he didn't even have to say _anything_.

 

"fucking  _ finally," _ jinwoo had said when daniel slipped into his room at 2am, nerves buzzing through his veins. he wasn't nervous  _ because _ it was jinwoo (convinced nothing jinwoo could ever do could bother him at this point) but rather because- this could still be some elaborate prank, daniel's mind supplied. jinwoo  _ could _ be fucking with him, could be ready to tear down his career before it even starts. his mom had told him to be careful when he left to be a trainee, think about himself before anyone else, and that's exactly what he  _ wasn't  _ doing right now.

 

instead of listening to the little voice in his head, daniel had let out a  _ "presumptuous?"  _ and laughed despite his nerves when jinwoo reached over to hit him, pulling the younger closer to the bed after. daniel had sat at the edge, rubbing his palms on his sweats as discreetly as he could (jinwoo noticed anyway and called him out), and let out a heavy breath.

 

"i've never-" he had started hesitantly, shaking his head immediately after the words left his mouth. "okay, i  _ have _ but it- it sucked. so please tell me this isn't gonna suck as well," and jinwoo had laughed, loud and bright, eyes glittering, hand coming up to cover his mouth immediately so as not to wake taewoong up.

 

"it won't suck," he'd promised, and he was right.

 

daniel had ended up with his shirt and sweats off, boxers halfway down his thighs, jinwoo still (embarrassingly) clothed above him, chest heaving as the elder jerked him off soft and slow. jinwoo had shoved a hand over his mouth, effectively muffling his whines and pleas for more ( _ can't wake taewoong up, can't have him finding out) _ , and smiled down at him as he thrust up into jinwoo's hand desperately. it was unlike anything he’d ever felt before, despite being  _ with  _ people in the past. with jinwoo it was just- different. better.  _ good.  _

 

he'd come with a whine, breath stuttering out of his chest, orgasm essentially being punched out of him. he'd watched as jinwoo moved his pants out of the way only enough to get his dick out, watched as the elder jerked himself off over daniel, watched as he came over daniel's stomach with a groan.

 

the elder had cleaned him up, let him lay in his bed for an hour before kicking him out with a  _ "you're too big for this," _ and it became a thing, of sorts. not an all-the-time thing just a- thing to pass time, a thing when one of them was stressed, a  _ thing.  _ feelings didn't have to matter, and daniel was happy.

 

which brings him back to now- back to where he's laying in bed thinking about how he hasn't been with anyone since then, how he misses being that close with someone, how he doesn't care about  _ feelings  _ (he likes to tell himself), how he just wants- someone to take care of him. how he really fucking wants to suck dick, just once. 

 

his mind travels to sungwoon, how he said once they get back to korea they could work something out. they've been back for a week, and haven't had a conversation yet. daniel’s starting to think conversations really aren't their  _ thing _ . despite this, daniel is excited, veins thrumming with  _ maybes _ and  _ hopefullys.  _ he can't pretend the idea of being able to be with someone again, being able to be close to them in an intimate way, didn't make him excited. 

 

it didn't have to mean anything, just like sungwoon said- he just wants it to be  _ something.  _

  
  
  


daniel’s at one of his personal schedules, the whole thing running later than he expected. he’s restless, thinking too much ( _ about sungwoon, about what they are, about what they could be) _ . he can’t focus, but all he really has to do is take pictures so it’s not that bad. 

 

he gets a break after an hour of shooting, and rushes off out of the main studio and down a hall. he had to  _ call _ someone, talk about this looming thing over him. 

 

he shoves himself inside a closet (because who’d look in a  _ closet  _ for him), and takes out his phone, dialing a number he knows by heart. 

 

“hyung,” daniel says once jinwoo picks up, suddenly feeling just a little dumb for calling him in the first place. it was  _ three am _ . 

 

jinwoo hums sleepily into the phone, sheets rustling in the speakers as he shifts. “why are you calling so late,” he asks, just a little grumpy, just a little concerned, and completely just-  _ jinwoo.  _

 

“i need… advice,” daniel says slowly, leaning back against the wall of the closet he’d shoved himself in. he realizes, suddenly, it wasn’t the smartest thing he’s ever done but, he digresses. 

 

“bout what,” jinwoo asks, voice starting to perk up the longer he was on the line. he’d be pissed later, daniel knew, that he didn’t get a full uninterrupted amount of sleep, but- daniel  _ needed _ this. “couldn’t just ask one of your other hyungs for help?”

 

“not… really,” daniel says hesitantly, cheeks heating up at the thought. he takes a deep breath. “so like, you know how we used to… like… do… stuff?” he says, awkwardly and disjointed. 

 

at this jinwoo lets out a  _ “ah,” _ over the line, shifting once more. daniel thinks he’s sitting up now, can almost see him leaning against the headboard looking tired in his mind. not for the first time, he feels guilt spike and pushes it down. 

 

“sure, i remember something like that,” jinwoo says, amusement in his voice. “who is it, though?” he asks, always the person to get to the point rather than beat around the bush. that’s why daniel liked him in the first place. 

 

daniel’s brain stutters, fizzles out, and he pauses. “uh,” he starts awkwardly. “why does there have to be someone?” he asks, panic suddenly welling up inside him. 

 

“because something tells me you didn’t call me at three am just to reminisce about when i used to give you handjobs,” jinwoo says flatly, unimpressed. 

 

“could’ve wanted to,” daniel grumbles, just a little annoyed jinwoo had to call him out. “it’s not… important, who it is. it’s just- someone?” 

 

“don’t tell me it’s who i think,” jinwoo says, and daniel can just  _ see _ the look of unamusement on his face. daniel goes to answer, but is only interrupted by jinwoo saying, “you and your weird fucking size kink, kang daniel.”

 

daniel sputters, chokes out a cough, manages a weak  _ “can you shut up?” _ before he regains his composure. “it’s just- it’s not  _ that _ ,” he says, voice half desperate. “we’ve kissed like, multiple times now. once was before the finale, then before debut, and then at mama hong kong, and like. whenhecametoseemeinbusan?” daniel rushes out, knowing jinwoo was going to freak the fuck out. 

 

“what. when he did  _ what,” _ jinwoo says, voice flat. “kang daniel,  _ i _ haven’t even been to your house and i’ve known you since forever!” he exclaims, pulling the phone away from his ear to yell out a  _ “shut up!” _ when taewoong bangs on the wall to get jinwoo to be quiet. 

 

“my mom invited him!” daniel says desperately, needing jinwoo to understand.

 

“so you made out in your  _ mom’s house?” _ jinwoo asks incredulously, voice a hushed whisper to please taewoong, or maybe keep all of this under wraps. daniel didn't know, and didn't care.

 

“no! it was in taejongdae! at 3am! for like, three nights!” daniel explains, voice verging on hysterical. he ignores how any one he’s working with could walk past the closet at any moment and find him essentially yelling over kissing a  _ boy. _

 

“you took him to fucking  _ taejongdae?” _

 

“he wanted to see the beach! i don’t fucking know, jinwoo!” 

 

“what, so now you want advice on how to fuck him when you’re already practically  _ married?” _ jinwoo says, disbelief in his voice. daniel sputters again, manages a weak  _ “i don’t like him like that!” _ and huffs. “daniel…”

 

“i don’t!” daniel says immediately. he feels an emotion he doesn’t want to deal with well up inside him. “i don’t have time to! just want a no feelings thing, just, i don’t know. like us. fuck,” he says, sliding down the wall in the closet, tired of standing.

 

“well first you need to figure out if  _ he _ has feelings, christs sake,” jinwoo says, sounding like he was talking to an idiot. and maybe he was, with the way daniel was acting. “if he doesn’t, then cool. just ask. if he  _ does,  _ then i will beat your ass if you still try anything. you’re not taking advantage of that to get your rocks off,” he says, voice taking on a slight edge. 

 

“what the fuck, i'm not a monster,” daniel replies, pout on his face. “i wouldn’t do that. really, hyung,” he assures, a little upset jinwoo would even insinuate that. 

 

“i know, niel,” jinwoo says, voice going soft. “you sure you don’t like him? you know it’s like… okay if you do, right?” he asks, voice hesitant. 

 

daniel feels panic well up in him as he thinks about it, heartbeat uncomfortable in his throat. “absolutely not,” he says, feeling like he was trying to convince himself more than jinwoo. he curls up tighter into a ball, and sighs. “promise.”

 

“alright,” jinwoo says. he doesn’t sound convinced, and daniel hates it.  _ hates _ it. “it’s really as simple as asking, once you figure out how he feels. at least you know he's not like, a homophobic piece of shit already, which makes it even easier.”

 

daniel is quiet for a while, just processing and breathing. he doesn’t know how long he’s been in the closet, but figures he’ll need to leave eventually. he thanks jinwoo endlessly for the help, promises to try and meet up soon, and hangs up. 

 

he stays on the floor of the closet for a long time after that, head hanging between his knees, and distinctly ignores the pounding of his heart. 

  
  
  


the conversation happens two weeks after mama. 

 

it comes in the form of a knock on daniel’s door a little past six, seongwu sitting snuggly in his bunk wrapped up in  _ his  _ blankets. daniel had been showing seongwu some new game that's caught his attention lately, the elder acting interested just for the sake of acting interested. seongwu looks at him in a way that lets daniel know  _ he’s _ definitely not getting up, so daniel groans and mumbles something under his breath before extracting his limbs from underneath him and going to open the door. 

 

he can't say he's surprised to see sungwoon on the other side, when any of the younger kids would've just barged into their room without knocking, a flurry of sound over  _ something _ new and exciting. 

 

daniel figures seongwu can't see who it is, considering how  _ tiny _ sungwoon is compared to daniel, so when seongwu trudges past (still swaddled in his blankets, that  _ thief _ ) and shoots a look his way, daniel slightly panics. why? he doesn't know. 

 

“i wasn't done explaining,” daniel says a little miserably, feeling a sense of dread wash over him. seongwu was leaving him alone with sungwoon and daniel didn't know what to expect. he's brushed off with a  _ “if sungwoon hyung’s here so is minhyunnie,” _ and tries not to make a face. this was fine. daniel was fine. 

 

“can we talk?” sungwoon finally says, voice quiet. he doesn't wait for an answer before pushing his way into the room, making himself comfortable on daniel’s blanket-barren bed. daniel shuts the door behind him slowly, like he's stalling (he is), and just faces the closed door for a minute. “daniel,” sungwoon says eventually, prompting the younger to turn around. 

 

“yep?” daniel responds awkwardly, hoping the panic he feels isn't evident in his voice. by the look on sungwoon’s face, he's not so sure that's the case. 

 

“hey, don't freak out. we just gotta get through the technicalities of this stuff and then we're good to go,” sungwoon responds, sounding sure of himself. it calms daniel’s nerves, if only just a little. sungwoon pats the open spot next to him, and before daniel sits he steals  _ seongwu’s  _ blankets off  _ his _ bed. daniel wraps himself securely in the blankets, leaning his head on sungwoon’s shoulder, and melts into the hand sungwoon rubs up and down his back. 

 

“i, um. i talked to jinwoo hyung, you know, the one from my company. about… this,” daniel says, hand coming up to bite at his nails. muffled, he continues, “we used to have like, a thing. like you and taehyun.”

 

sungwoon hums in acknowledgement, waiting for daniel to continue. he knows daniel has more he wants to say. 

 

“he- we… it was a no feelings thing. it worked well,” daniel says, looking down at his lap. he wishes sungwoon would say  _ something  _ to let him know he's not fucking this up royally. “i think i want that again?” he says in conclusion, voice lilting up at the end. 

 

“i think that's best, yeah,” sungwoon says quietly, still rubbing up and down, up and down daniel’s back. 

 

“but...” daniel trails off. but  _ what?  _ he asks himself,  _ what else is there to say _ ? there is something else, but daniel has no clue what that  _ something  _ is.   
  
sungwoon hums, patient as ever, even as daniel slumps down against him even more.   
  
“i dunno,” daniel finally whispers, suddenly  _ exhausted _ . maybe this is why him and sungwoon were never cut out for serious conversations- daniel couldn’t focus long enough to  _ have _ one. 

 

“we’ll take it slow,” sungwoon says gently, softly. he's so  _ caring  _ it makes daniel’s head spin sometimes. daniel nods in response, feeling somewhat at ease with that answer. 

 

they’ll take it slow. he trusts sungwoon, he really does. 

 

they sit there, daniel essentially huddled underneath sungwoon's arm, for an hour without talking before seongwu pops his head in and calls them both out to eat. seongwu scowls when he sees daniel has stolen his blankets, and it makes sungwoon laugh, loud and bright. it fills daniel with a lightness he didn't realize he was missing. sungwoon mentions something about daniel’s new game, causing daniel to launch into a tangent. daniel misses the fond look sungwoon gives him, and he sits opposite the taller boy so they can continue their conversation. 

 

if this is how things are going to go, daniel figures they’ll be okay.

  
  
  


they finally find time to do  _ anything _ two weeks later, when they all have a day off and it's too nice out to stay inside. sungwoon fakes sick, and daniel follows in suit, mumbling that being around sungwoon so much got  _ him  _ sick as well. 

 

jisung believes them, because he’s jisung and always so trusting, and they retreat back to their rooms until everyone leaves for the day. 

 

which brings them to now:

 

“wanted to do this since forever,” sungwoon says, voice a little dreamy. daniels cock was cradled in his hand, lips practically brushing against the tip as he spoke. “so pretty,” sungwoon comments, and daniel doesn’t know if the elder is talking about  _ him _ or his  _ dick.  _

 

“be nice if you got on with it,” daniel mumbles bitterly, painfully hard and a little embarrassed. he was completely undressed while sungwoon at least still had his pants on. he gasps, dick twitching when sungwoon smacks his thigh in retaliation, scolding him for being impatient. 

 

“interesting. remind me to explore that later,” sungwoon comments, watching as the red blooms on daniel’s skin. he kisses the tip of daniel’s dick softly, and revels in the gasp the younger lets out. he takes his time kissing along daniel’s dick, making his way down the length, and daniel is wholeheartedly convinced he’s going to combust. 

 

“can you- o-oh  _ fuck,” _ daniel says, breath catching in his throat as his hand flies up to sungwoon’s hair. he was  _ about _ to ask sungwoon to get on with it ( _ again) _ when the elder took him completely into his mouth, cheeks hollowing. 

 

“hm?” sungwoon asks, twinkle in his eye when he comes back up moments later. “what were you saying?”

 

“n-nothing,” daniel says, biting his lip as sungwoon slowly strokes his cock. this was  _ torture _ , but in the best way daniel could imagine. 

 

“thought so,” sungwoon replies, before going back down on daniel. everything he did was so  _ slow,  _ like he was really dragging this out, savoring it, and daniel wanted to scream in frustration. not that he wasn’t enjoying himself -it's not everyday you get a blowjob from  _ ha sungwoon- _ but he was  _ desperate.  _

 

daniel feels, more than hears himself gasp, and it’s immediately followed by the most pitiful whine he’s ever let out when sungwoon does  _ something _ with his tongue, right up against the head of his cock. daniel watches with half lidded eyes as sungwoon’s head bobs up and down rhythmically, and he wonders how many times he’s done  _ this _ to get so good (he distinctly ignores how this is his first blowjob and he has nothing else to compare it to- sungwoon was fucking  _ amazing). _

 

“h-holy fuck,” daniel gasps out, hips twitching and hand flexing in the sheets. his other hand was still on sungwoon’s head- not pushing, or holding, but rather just… there. he takes a chance and grips sungwoon’s hair gently, and is rewarded with sungwoon humming around his cock. “do that again,” he says. 

 

“ask nicely and maybe i will, baby boy,” sungwoon says when he comes back up, giving daniel a smile. it’s predatory, in the way sungwoon looks at him, and daniel feels his brain fizzle out at the pet name. 

 

“h-huh?” he stutters, mind fuzzy. every time sungwoon came up from sucking him off, he’d jerk him off soft and slow, keeping daniel just on edge. not for the first time, daniel thinks this is modern day torture. 

 

“silly baby, can’t even remember his manners when he gets someone around his cock, huh?” sungwoon says, just on the edge of patronizing, and daniel feels his breath hitch. it was  _ humiliating,  _ being talked to like this, made him feel small and dumb- but he  _ liked it.  _

 

it takes his mind a while to process the conversation, feeling fuzzy and floaty. when he finally does he chokes out a  _ “please?” _ and is rewarded with a kiss to his upper thigh, so  _ so _ close to where daniel wants him. 

 

sungwoon gives daniel a half smile, more a quirk of his lips than anything else, and moves to kiss along the base of daniel’s cock and down to his balls, hand still moving up and down his length. his thumb swipes across the head and daniel jerks, moaning loudly. he suddenly realizes he can’t remember if they’re supposed to be quiet or not, and doesn’t really care. 

 

he whines and gives sungwoon a confused look when the elder suddenly stops all movements, getting up on his knees. sungwoon was hard- could see the outline of his cock through his sweats at this point. 

 

“i wanna try something, ‘kay?” sungwoon says, already pulling down his pants enough to get his dick out. daniel nods just a little dopily, and stares at sungwoon’s dick in fascination. 

 

now don’t get daniel wrong- he had seen dicks before. had to, living with a bunch of boys, with his thing he had with jinwoo. he had seen dicks,  _ but _ he had never quite seen a dick as pretty as sungwoon’s. it wasn’t long, per se, but it was  _ thick, _ and daniel’s mouth watered at the thought of maybe being able to suck him off one day. 

 

sungwoon leans forward, lining up their dicks, and wraps his hand around both of them. he gives an experimental tug, and it’s a little awkward, with sungwoon’s hand not being  _ that _ big despite his long fingers. daniel suddenly wants to help, larger hand coming up to wrap around their dicks. 

 

sungwoon thrusts into the grip daniel has on both of them, and lets out a soft moan as his cock drags against daniel’s. “fuck, that’s good, baby,” he groans out, bending down to kiss along daniel’s chest. daniel drags his hand up, slightly tightening his grip as he moves closer to the top, causing sungwoon to let out another moan. 

 

“faster, angel, c’mon,” sungwoon says, thrusting up into daniel’s grip again. he leans down to kiss daniel, licking into his mouth and muffling his own moans when daniel picks up the pace of his hand movements. it was nice, with sungwoon bossing him around, didn’t make him have to think at all. 

 

“hyung, can you- ah- can you call me… that thing again,” daniel says softly, gasping as he thrusts into his own hand. 

 

“hm? angel?” sungwoon asks, head tilting slightly. 

 

“n-no, the other thing, a-ah  _ fuck,” _ daniel gasps out, grip on their dicks slackening when sungwoon grinds down, throwing his head back in the process. 

 

sungwoon is quiet for a while, thinking, hand taking the place of daniel’s. he strokes them slow (always so goddamn  _ slow) _ , lost in thought, and daniel whines. after a minute, a smile creeps over his face and he grips daniel’s hair, forcing him to look at sungwoon. 

 

“what’s wrong,  _ baby boy?” _ he says, leaning close to whisper the last part directly into daniel’s ear. “is hyung not being fast enough for the needy baby?” 

 

and daniel- daniel feels his entire body fizzle out, dick twitching painfully where it was gripped in sungwoon’s hand, eyes fluttering closed and gasping sharply. sungwoon honest to god  _ giggles _ , and daniel can’t find it in him to care all that much, brain looping sungwoon calling him  _ baby boy _ . 

 

“so fucking perfect,” sungwoon hisses out (in an exact echo of that night in busan, daniel’s mind supplies). he bends down to kiss along daniel’s neck and collar bones, leaving small nips in his path, just hard enough to make daniel gasp but soft enough so as not to leave a mark. “my perfect baby boy,” he says in between kisses, twisting his wrist on the upstroke and causing daniel to shake. 

 

“yours?” daniel asks, barely registering what he was saying. he was so goddamn  _ close.  _

 

_ “ _ yeah, mine,” sungwoon responds, biting a little  _ too  _ hard at daniel’s collar bone. 

 

daniel feels, more than registers, himself come. he lets out a whine, gasping and shaking through the whole thing, mind blank. sungwoon continues jerking him off, smearing around daniel’s come in the process and he whines, pushing at sungwoon’s hand. he pouts when sungwoon laughs at him. “hurts,” daniel says, still pouting. 

 

“sorry, baby boy,” sungwoon says, and revels in the way daniel blushes. “can i come on your chest?” sungwoon asks, gasping as he jerks himself off over daniel. daniel nods, letting out a soft  _ “mhm,” _ eyes fluttering closed as he comes down from the high of orgasm. 

 

sungwoon comes moments later, the elder letting out a long groan in the process. daniel feels the warmth on his chest, and cracks one eye open, dragging a finger through the mess. he brings the finger up to his mouth and licks, curious. 

 

“hm. not that bad,” daniel comments softly, more to himself than anyone else. he hears sungwoon let out a groan above him, and smiles cheekily. 

 

“you’re killin’ me,” sungwoon says, leaning down to kiss daniel softly. daniel doesn’t know how long they spend kissing, sungwoon rubbing a thumb across daniel’s cheek slowly. sungwoon pulls away after a while, daniel whining softly, and the elder laughs, not moving far. “you feelin’ alright?” he asks softly, pushing daniel’s hair off his forehead. 

 

and daniel, daniel feels  _ great.  _ soft and warm, content to just lay and kiss sungwoon all night. his mind was still a little fuzzy, just a little floaty, but not enough he couldn’t  _ think- _ just enough it had him feeling  _ good.  _ “feel really good, hyung,” daniel says eventually, giving the elder a soft smile and leaning up into sungwoon’s hand when the thumb that’s resting on his cheek continues it’s movements. 

 

“good,” sungwoon responds, shifting so he can get up and get something to clean them both up with. he comes back with daniel’s sweats in one hand and wet wipes in the other, cleaning daniel up quickly. “you should probably shower later but… for now, it’s fine,” sungwoon says, handing daniel his sweats and smiling softly. 

 

daniel slips them on, just a little awkward with the way he practically refuses to do more than sit up. he lays back down almost immediately, moving under the covers, and looks up at sungwoon expectantly, lifting the blanket for him to get under, too. 

 

sungwoon smiles again, crawling into bed next to daniel and cuddles up to him. “you wanna be the big or little spoon,” sungwoon whispers, feeling as if he spoke any louder some mood would be broken. 

 

“hm. little,” daniel replies, giving sungwoon a smile before turning to face the wall. he hums in content when sungwoon scoots closer, wrapping his arm around daniel’s waist loosely. the elder kisses between daniel’s shoulder blades softly, and daniel feels his heart rate skyrocket. this whole thing- this, cuddling after sex, the soft kisses, was so painfully  _ domestic,  _ daniel didn’t know what to do. 

 

not for the first time, daniel ignores the pounding of his heart and goes to sleep.

  
  
  


it’s sungwoon’s birthday when daniel finally gets  _ his  _ wish. 

 

it’s late, later than any of them should be awake. they had already surprised sungwoon with a cake as soon as the hour rolled over, all crammed into the upstairs apartment singing happy birthday as quietly as possible so as not to bother the neighbors. it's when daniel is back in his bed, seongwu snoring softly above him, that he gets a text from sungwoon. 

 

a simple “ _ you awake?” _ that interrupts his netflix binge session. he opens the text and responds with a quick “ _ yeah,” _ watching as the little 1 disappears from next to his message. like sungwoon was waiting, like sungwoon was  _ expecting _ him to be up. 

 

“ _ come upstairs?” _ he gets in return, and daniel stares at the top of his bunk for a minute, phone resting on his chest. a few seconds later a  _ “minhyun snuck out to go see someone,” _ follows the previous text, and daniel bites his lip in contemplation. he  _ could _ roll over and go to bed, apologize in the morning with a weak excuse of him falling asleep. he  _ could _ , yet he doesn't want to. wants to see where this would go. 

 

“ _ kay, seongwu’s knocked out anyway,” _ daniel responds, sitting up slowly. he makes his way out of the room, closing the door as softly as he can behind him, and just prays no one else is awake to ask him where he’s going. 

 

unluckily for daniel, jihoon is awake and sitting right on the couch, directly in the line of sight of the front entryway. daniel tries his best to just sneak out (like he's 15 again, on his way to go meet up with friends) but is ultimately stopped by the  _ “uhm, hyung?” _ from the boy. 

 

clearing his throat and straightening up, daniel turns to face jihoon, who's illuminated by the tv in front of him. “uh… yep?” he says, trying to go for as casual as possible and failing miserably. 

 

“it's-” jihoon’s eyes flick over to the cable box then back to daniel, “1:30? where are you going?”

 

“uh… to the gym?” daniel says awkwardly, genuinely thinking on the fly. 

 

“at… half past 1?” jihoon asks, head cocking to the side. he doesn’t look totally convinced daniel is  _ actually _ going to the gym, and daniel panics slightly. 

 

“yeah, i can't sleep so… i dunno. thought running would like, help or something,” daniel responds, slowly inching closer to the door as he spoke. he prays with everything in him that jihoon will just  _ drop it _ and go back to watching whatever it is he was before daniel walked out. 

 

thankfully, all jihoon does is make a noise of acknowledgement and turn his head back to the screen, letting out a  _ ‘have a good workout then, hyung,” _ when daniel opens the door. daniel thanks him before closing the door behind him softly, letting out a sigh of relief once it's shut.  _ that _ was almost a disaster. 

 

daniel makes his way up to the other apartment slowly, opting to take the stairs verses the elevator. it's only one floor anyway, he figures, and needs the extra time to clear his head. 

 

he's not nervous- not really, anyway. he just doesn't know what sungwoon is expecting. if they're just going to hangout, or if something  _ else _ is going to happen. either way, daniel figures, he can't lose. 

 

before he can even text sungwoon asking to let him in, the door is swinging open, revealing the elder. 

 

“hi,” daniel says, a little breathless. sungwoon looks  _ good, _ even if he's just in pajama pants and a t-shirt. he figured sungwoon always did have a way of looking good, even in the most basic of clothes. daniel didn't think he could relate. 

 

he’s ushered in quickly after sungwoon’s greeting in return, led with a hand on his back to sungwoon and minhyun’s room. sungwoon gets straight to the point when they get into his room, backing daniel up against the door and kissing him hard. 

 

“been waiting hours for this,” he mumbles against daniel’s lips, diving back in to kiss him harder. daniel groans, hands coming up to wrap around sungwoon’s neck and run his fingers through the short hairs at the base of his neck. 

 

they part for air, leaving daniel panting and desperate for  _ more. _ before he can even think about what he's asking, he's whispering a  _ “can i suck you off?” _ effectively making sungwoon raise an eyebrow in question. 

 

the elder moves to the bed, pulling daniel along with him. “have you ever?” he asks, curious. he sits down on the bed, spreading his legs wide enough for daniel to settle between them on the floor, and smiles softly. 

 

“no,” daniel responds honestly. “i mean, it can’t be that hard. porn makes it look easy,” daniel says, staring up at sungwoon from where he had situated himself on the floor on his knees. 

 

sungwoon laughs lightly, quietly, and shakes his head in disbelief. “just please, for the love of god, cover your teeth,” sungwoon practically begs, legs spread to accommodate daniel and hands resting behind him as he leaned back onto them. “one time taehyun-“

 

“hyung,” daniel interrupts, pouting. “i’m not taehyun. i’m  _ me _ and  _ i’m _ here,” he says, resting his chin on sungwoon’s thigh. 

 

sungwoon laughs softly, reaching up to pet through daniel’s hair. “sorry. just don’t be weirdly overexaggerated like in porn. it's not hot,” sungwoon says. 

 

“noted,” daniel says, eyes closing as he focused on the hand in his hair. he wasn’t nervous, not really, more just finally fucking ready to know what this was  _ like.  _

 

“you gonna do something or you just want me to pet you like a dog for an hour?” sungwoon says after a few minutes, amusement in his voice. “bet if you had a tail it’d be wagging right now,” he adds. 

 

daniel hums, and cracks an eye open. “you know they have like, tail buttplugs and shit. seem like a decent investment,” he mumbles. 

 

“ _ daniel,” _ sungwoon says, exasperated. “focus.”

 

“you're the one who brought up tails in the first place!” daniel exclaims, just as exasperated but smiling all the same. he moves his head off sungwoon’s thigh and reaches for the waistband of sungwoon’s pants. 

 

he pulls them off, leaving sungwoon’s boxers on for now, and reaches out to rub along the length of sungwoon’s dick. he grinds his palm down gently and smiles up at sungwoon when he groans softly. 

 

he pulls off sungwoon's boxers when the elder is half hard, gripping sungwoon’s cock in his hand. he strokes a few times, feeling the elder get harder in his hand, and revels in the quiet encouragement sungwoon gives him. 

 

daniel bends to lick the tip of sungwoon's dick, hesitant and unsure. he grows more confident on the next movement, digging the tip of his tongue into the slit and making sungwoon shake. 

 

“just- yeah, just like that, angel,” sungwoon breathes out, voice low. he places a hand on daniel’s head, groaning softly when daniel sucks at the tip of sungwoon’s dick. daniel takes more of sungwoon into his mouth, careful of his gag reflex, and strokes what he can't reach with his hand. 

 

it's better than daniel expected- the feeling of something hot and full on his tongue contrasting with the hand in his hair feeling better than he could have imagined. he bobs his head a little clumsily, hand coming up to cover what his mouth can't reach, and revels in the little hum sungwoon lets out. 

 

he flicks his tongue below the head of sungwoon’s cock (just how  _ he _ likes) and watches as the elder’s eyes roll back in his head, head lolling to the side to rest on his shoulder. daniel feels the hand in his hair tug, and he looks up at sungwoon questioningly. 

 

“can i fuck your mouth?” sungwoon asks, voice still quiet. daniel suddenly remembers the gravity of the situation- the people in the other rooms, the risk of minhyun coming back any minute. something ignites in the pit of his stomach, and he holds up a thumbs up before sungwoon can even finish saying  _ “i’ll be gentle.” _

 

daniel stills his movements when sungwoon pulls his head back with the grip he has on his hair, thrusting in slightly as if to test. the younger doesn’t know what to do with his hands, one coming down to palm at his still clothed cock, the other coming up to rest on sungwoon’s hip. he hums softly when the grip on his hair tightens as sungwoon thrusts in again, the sting pleasant on his scalp, and takes pleasure in the way sungwoon’s breath hitches. 

 

sungwoon thrusts in and out of daniel’s mouth, hitting the back of daniel’s throat and making him gag a few times, but ultimately it's not awful, daniel learns. it's almost intoxicating, the drag of sungwoon's cock on his tongue, the drool collecting on the sides of his mouth. it's a mess _ ,  _ and everything daniel wanted this to be. 

 

sungwoon sticks a thumb into the corner of daniel’s mouth, nestled right next to his cock, and groans. “so fucking hot,” he says, pushing his dick deeper into the younger’s mouth. daniel chokes again slightly, but regains his composure quickly and licks along the vein on the underside of sungwoon’s dick. he's drooling, and it all feels so fucking  _ filthy _ daniel doesn't know what to do with himself. he thrusts up into his own hand a little desperately, letting out a whine around sungwoon’s cock. 

 

“needy, hm?” sungwoon says, voice breathy, but still more composed than daniel is himself. “who knew a mouth full of cock would reduce big, strong kang daniel to a desperate mess, thrusting into his own hand on the floor, huh?”

 

daniel lets out another whine, blush coloring his cheeks and ears, pulling off sungwoon’s cock to rest his head on the elder’s thigh. he lets out soft pants as he palms his cock, and he’s almost certain he’s going to come in his pants like he's a teenager, but he doesn't care. 

 

“hyung,” daniel gasps out, voice raspy, hips stuttering when sungwoon threads his fingers through daniel’s hair again, pulling slightly. he’s got his own cock in his other hand, stroking slowly as he watches daniel desperately try to get off. 

 

“jerk yourself off properly, daniel,” sungwoon says, and his voice leaves no room for argument (not that daniel would, anyway, but still). daniel doesn't think he's ever undone his pants that fast in his life. he shudders when his dick springs free, finally getting  _ some _ relief. he wraps a hand around himself and lets out a long breath. “go slow,” sungwoon adds, almost as an afterthought. 

 

daniel honest to god whines, letting out a petulant “ _ hyung” _ in the process. despite this, he listens, dragging his hand almost tortuously slow up his cock, shaking in the process. he buries his face in the side of sungwoon’s thigh, letting out another whine. 

 

“quiet, niel,” sungwoon reminds him, watching in fascination as daniel continues to jerk himself off slowly, hips twitching up every few seconds. “you want jisung hyung to wake up and hear? jaehwannie?”

 

daniel shakes his head against sungwoon's thigh, ignoring how he seems to get  _ harder _ at the thought. he picks up the pace of his hand when sungwoon prompts him to, letting out soft gasps every few seconds. he shifts, knees starting to hurt from kneeling for so long, and moves his head so he can watch the drag of sungwoon’s hand against his own dick. 

 

“‘m gonna-” daniel gasps out, flicking his wrist in the process and groaning. he's trying to be quiet, he really is. 

 

“go ahead, angel,” sungwoon says, picking up the pace of his own hand. he swipes his thumb over the tip of his cock, collecting the pre-come there and groans. watching daniel get off never ceased to be hot. 

 

what he doesn't expect is for daniel to shake his head and remove his hand from his own cock with a whine, though. 

 

“want you to come first,” daniel says, letting out heavy breaths as he tries to calm down. he looks like he wants to ask for something, but hesitates. 

 

“what's up?” sungwoon asks, hand coming up to grip daniel’s chin. they make eye contact for a few seconds before daniel finally looks away, the younger essentially twiddling his thumbs. 

 

“want you to come in my mouth?” daniel finally says, after what feels like ten minutes, but can really only be two. he sounds more like he's asking a question than anything else. 

 

sungwoon can't help the laugh he lets out. it's not mocking in the slightest, more a laugh of endearment than anything else. daniel was so- so  _ precious,  _ even if he wasn't trying to be. he apologizes quickly when daniel pouts, not wanting daniel to think he was making  _ fun _ of him, and nods. 

 

“i can do that,” sungwoon says, reaching out to rub across daniel’s cheek. they stay like that for a few seconds, just looking at each other and breathing, before daniel seems to realize sungwoon  _ agreed _ . a smile spreads across his face, and he shifts on the floor, looking eagerly up at sungwoon. 

 

sungwoon takes himself into his hand again, starting to jerk himself off and groaning when he flicks his wrist. he continues on for a few minutes, letting out soft pants and puffs of air. “open,” sungwoon prompts breathily, hand coming out to grip daniel’s chin. 

 

daniel’s mouth falls open effortlessly, eyes falling closed seconds later. he flinches when the first ropes of come land on his tongue, but recovers quickly. he giggles slightly when some gets on his cheek and misses the adoring eye roll sungwoon sends him in return. 

 

“swallow,” prompts sungwoon, swiping up the mess on daniel’s cheek with his thumb. he watches as daniel swallows and licks his lips, sungwoon pressing his thumb into daniel’s mouth to get him to lick that up as well. daniel does, sucking on sungwoon’s thumb longer than necessary, and sungwoon groans. 

 

“still not as bad as everyone makes it seem,” daniel mumbles, eyes reopening and looking up at sungwoon. he looks  _ wrecked _ , lips swollen and red, and something in sungwoon’s gut twists. 

 

“i think you're an anomaly, niel,” sungwoon says, laughing slightly. daniel’s still hard, sungwoon can see clearly, so he scoots back on the bed and motions daniel into his lap. 

 

“hyung i can just…” daniel tries to protest, mouth pitched down in a frown. like the thought of the elder taking care of him would be too  _ much _ for sungwoon. 

 

“just come up here and let me take care of you, yeah?” sungwoon responds, smiling softly. “it's only fair,” he reasons. 

 

daniel grumbles cutely, standing up and whining when his bones crack from being knelt on the floor for so long. sungwoon lets out a soft laugh, and gives daniel an encouraging smile when he goes to shimmy out of his pants. this isn't the first time they've done this- not at all, but daniel seems more nervous than other times. sungwoon doesn't have time to worry about why, not when daniel’s crawling into his lap and making himself comfortable. 

 

“‘m too big for this,” daniel mumbles, ducking his head when sungwoon grips his hips, thumbs rubbing softly across his hip bones. there's a blush high on his cheeks, one sungwoon thinks is the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. 

 

“you're perfect,” sungwoon says, leaning up to kiss daniel’s nose softly. he smiles when daniel pouts, leaning up again to kiss daniel's cheeks and forehead until the younger is giggling and pushing sungwoon's face away with a large hand. 

 

“hyung i’m still hard,” daniel practically whines, like sungwoon  _ forgot _ . 

 

“i know, you big baby, calm down,” sungwoon responds, voice light. he moves his hand from daniel’s hip to grip his cock, stroking once to see daniel’s reaction. daniel lets out a muffled whine, burying his face in the juncture between sungwoon’s neck and shoulder, mumbling out a  _ “you're so mean,” _ into his skin. 

 

“how am i mean?” sungwoon asks, laughter in his voice. daniel really  _ was _ just a big baby. “i’m doing what you want me to?” he says, teasing. he knows exactly what daniel wants- it's just a matter of if sungwoon wants to play around  _ first.  _

 

“if you're gonna start something don't just  _ stop,” _ daniel says, hips twitching up to try and get more friction. he groans lowly when sungwoon moves his hand a little faster than before in response, flicking his wrist when he gets towards the top. it's easy to get reactions out of daniel, the younger whining or squirming every few seconds because of the pleasure. sungwoon  _ revels _ in it. 

 

“feel good?” sungwoon asks, just a little breathless from watching daniel shake apart above him. daniel nods almost frantically, hands gripping sungwoon's shoulders, face still buried in sungwoon’s neck. he gasps out a  _ “really good,”  _ voice hitching slightly when sungwoon digs his thumb into the slit of daniel’s cock. sungwoon rubs a thumb across daniel’s nipple through his shirt, groaning when it causes daniel to bite down on his shoulder. 

 

it doesn't take daniel long to finish, not after everything else from tonight. he comes all over sungwoon’s fist, gasping into his neck as he shakes, chest heaving. he sits there for a minute, just trying to get his breath back, and leans into the hand sungwoon is rubbing up and down his back. he's maneuvered off sungwoon's lap eventually, the elder getting up so he can clean up both of them. 

 

it's a few minutes later, when they're both cleaned up and dressed again, that sungwoon reaches over to kiss daniel softly. it catches daniel off guard, but he melts into it anyway. 

 

“thank you,” sungwoon says when he pulls away, smiling softly. daniel hums, diving back in to peck sungwoon's lips again, and smiles back. 

 

“you're welcome,” daniel says softly, pulling away to leave the room. “see you tomorrow, hyung. happy birthday again,” he adds with a gentle smile, before slipping out of sungwoon's room and into the main apartment. 

 

the kitchen light is on when he walks out, and he freezes. he has to walk past the kitchen to get to the front door, so he's just praying someone forgot to turn it off and not that someone is  _ awake.  _

 

for the second time that night, he's proven unlucky. as he tiptoes past the kitchen, he hears a “ _ daniel,” _ from the one person he  _ didn't  _ want to see right now. 

 

“hyung,” daniel says awkwardly, turning so he was looking into the kitchen, right at jisung. he's cradling a mug in his hands, looking exhausted, and daniel feels guilt spike. 

 

“you know we have early schedules tomorrow, right?” jisung says, not looking at daniel. that sets the younger on edge, knowing from years of experience that jisung knew something daniel didn't want him to. daniel watches as jisung sets his mug down painstakingly slow, watches as the elder turns towards him. it's nerve wracking, the quiet disappointment jisung has, the way daniel is so used to it by now after years of being around him. 

 

“yeah,” daniel says quietly, firmly rooted in place. he felt if he took one step closer, something would snap. 

 

“so why are you up here, niel?” jisung asks, head tilting. he asks it in a way that lets daniel know he already knows why daniel is upstairs and not in his own apartment, in his own room sleeping soundly. 

 

“i- i? um, sungwoonie hyung asked me to,” daniel responds, feeling cornered. he hated disappointing jisung, always doing his best to  _ not _ do that, and yet here he was, the cause of the disappointed look on the elders face. 

 

“daniel,” jisung says firmly, moving closer to wrap the taller boy up in a hug despite his tone. daniel cranes his neck so he can bury his face in jisungs shoulder, taking a deep, deep breath. “you're not exactly quiet,” is what jisung says after a minute, effectively making daniel stiffen up and panic shoot through his body. 

 

“hyung, i-i’m sorry,” daniel says quietly, voice muffled from being buried in jisung’s shoulder still. he doesn't know what he's apologizing for  _ more _ , for hooking up with sungwoon or for being  _ him _ . 

 

jisung rubs daniel’s back slowly, other hand coming up to pet the back of daniel’s head. “you know i don't care. i didn't care when it was jinwoo, and i don't care now. i just want you to be  _ safe  _ about it, not like what happened tonight,” he says, causing daniel to lift his head and look at jisung. 

 

“you knew? about…” daniel asks, trailing off and frowning slightly. he had no idea jisung knew about him and jinwoo, the elder having said nothing or even  _ hinted _ at him knowing. 

 

“course i did. taewoong might've been oblivious but i wasn't. you aren't exactly subtle when it comes to things like this, you know. too loving for your own good,” jisung says softly, kissing daniel’s forehead and detaching himself from the younger. he moves back to the kitchen, picking up his mug once again, and turns his head to smile at daniel. “go back downstairs, niel. i’ll see you in the morning,” he says, watching as daniel nods and makes his way to the front door. 

 

“thanks, hyung,” daniel says quietly, but loud enough so jisung can hear. he slips out the door after hearing the hum of acknowledgement, and makes his way back downstairs, into his room, mumbling an apology and excuse when seongwu wakes up momentarily. 

 

in the morning, he stays close to sungwoon and even closer to jisung, and distinctly does not worry about last night. 

  
  
  


they fuck for the first time while they’re in japan on their world tour. the summer air is hot and humid around them, and daniel wants to do nothing more than lay in a bath full of cold water. 

 

sungwoon had said he’d handle everything. had told daniel not to worry, had told him to just bring himself with the sleaziest wink daniel had ever seen (daniel had hit him, and sungwoon had laughed).

 

which brings them to now:

 

sharing a room, daniel pinned against the wall, sungwoon grinding the heel of his palm into daniel’s dick through his jeans. daniel feels his legs shake, and he’s convinced he’d be on the floor if not for the grip sungwoon has on his wrist where it’s against the wall. it’s late, late enough to be dark out, the only light in the room coming from the buildings outside. 

 

“please,” he gasps out, voice breathy. he thrusts up into sungwoon’s palm, desperate to get more friction. 

 

“please what?” sungwoon asks, hand pressing down harder and smiling when daniel tries to muffle his own whine by biting his lip. 

 

“please  _ more,” _ daniel practically begs, chest heaving. he moves to the bed when sungwoon pushes him gently, taking off his shirt and undoing his pants on the way. 

 

he watches as sungwoon moves over to his suitcase, pulling out lube and a condom. daniel stares at him from the bed, and sungwoon lifts his head and gives him a smile. 

 

“what? i told you i’d deal with everything. i meant it,” sungwoon says, making his way over to the bed. he deposits what's in his hand onto the bed, and pulls off his shirt. not for the first time, daniel thinks sungwoon’s body really  _ is _ perfect. he didn’t really have abs like daniel or minhyun but- he was muscular, and lean, and daniel was  _ obsessed.  _

 

sungwoon slips his pants off, so daniel follows in suit and suddenly feels a spike of anxiety. they had talked about tonight in length- who’d top, who’d bottom (daniel had insisted it’d be him, despite never doing this before. sungwoon had laughed and nodded), what would happen and so on. they had  _ talked  _ about this, yet daniel was still nervous. 

 

as if reading his mind, sungwoon crawls onto the bed and kisses daniel softly. “we don’t have to do all of this tonight. we can wait, or never do it at all. anything you want,” he says, holding daniel’s face gently in a hand. 

 

“no, i want to. just nervous,” daniel says honestly, leaning over to kiss sungwoon again. he lays back when sungwoon pushes on his shoulder gently, and moves his hands up to sungwoon’s waist when the elder climbs on top of him, straddling his hips. 

 

they take their time kissing, daniel rubbing his thumbs in circles on sungwoon’s hips, sungwoon grinding down slowly to get them both hard. they were still in their boxers but the friction was  _ nice _ , daniel letting out little moans every few seconds. 

 

sungwoon eventually pulls back, and daniel feels more relaxed than he has in weeks. “can i finger you open?” sungwoon asks, and daniel nods, even if it is a little hesitant. 

 

sungwoon moves off of daniel, instructing the younger to take his boxers off, and follows in suit (daniel mentally thanks god, because he was tired of being the only one naked sometimes). sungwoon picks up the lube, cracking open the top and pouring some onto his fingers, rubbing it around to warm it up. 

 

“have you ever done this before?” sungwoon asks, pushing one of daniel’s legs up so his knee was bent. he reaches down and smears around the lube while waiting for an answer. 

 

“once,” daniel says, breath already coming heavier as sungwoon prods at his entrance. “when i was like, 18. embarrassing as hell going to buy lube, fuck,” he adds. 

 

“that’s just cause you're a big baby,” sungwoon says, laughing. he bends down to kiss the inside of daniel’s thigh, and revels in the gasp the younger lets out. “ready?”

 

“yeah,” daniel says softly, shifting slightly. he groans when sungwoon starts pushing a finger in, not used to the sensation. 

 

sungwoon pumps his finger in and out slowly, getting daniel used to it. he bends down to lick at one of daniel’s nipples, and daniel moans, hips twitching up. he picks up the pace of the finger inside daniel, and smiles to himself when the younger lets out a whine. 

 

after a few minutes, sungwoon brings his middle finger down, tip just brushing against daniel’s entrance. “please,” daniel says, voice breathy. 

 

sungwoon hums, pushing in his other finger slowly, and watches daniel’s face for any signs of discomfort. daniel smiles at him gently in reassurance and assures him he’s fine. 

 

sungwoon moves his fingers in and out of daniel faster, bending down to resume kissing along his thighs. daniel’s breath hitches when sungwoon bites, leaving a mark in the one place he knows for sure will be hidden. 

 

daniel starts whining for more, pushing down on sungwoon’s fingers inside of him, and gasps when sungwoon crooks his fingers  _ just _ right. 

 

“hyung, hyung,” daniel gasps out, hands frantically looking for something to grab on to. “‘m gonna come,” he says, fingers scrabbling at the sheets. 

 

“already?” sungwoon says, amusement in his voice. he doesn’t stop his movements, fingers still pumping in and out of daniel. 

 

“yes  _ fuck _ ,” daniel responds, back arching when sungwoon hits that spot inside of him again. “not my fault when you’re so fucking- shit- good at this,” he says, voice whiny. 

 

sungwoon giggles, and adds another finger, causing daniel to curse. the younger looks wrecked already, from just having three fingers inside of him, hair matted to his forehead and lips bitten raw. 

 

“you can come if you want, but you’ll have to later, too,” sungwoon sing songs, stretching his fingers out inside daniel and reveling in the moan daniel lets out. 

 

something about those words has daniel’s eyes rolling back in his head, clenching down on sungwoon’s fingers and letting out another moan. he’s so  _ fucking  _ close, and all it really takes is another crook of sungwoon’s fingers to push him over the edge. he comes with a whine, hand reaching out and landing on sungwoon’s shoulder, chest heaving. 

 

daniel groans when sungwoon pulls his fingers out, the elder moving up daniel’s body to kiss along his chest, up to his neck, eventually making it to his lips. 

 

“round 2 soon?” sungwoon asks, lips brushing against daniel’s as he spoke. he mumbles a  _ “so fucking cute,” _ when daniel cracks an eye open, frowning. 

 

“gimme ten,” daniel says, still breathing heavily. 

 

“bet i can make it five?” sungwoon challenges, flashing daniel a smile when the younger glares at him. he laughs loud and bright when daniel mumbles a  _ “horny bastard,” _ and rolls onto his stomach, ignoring the mess. 

 

sungwoon moves behind him, thumbs digging into the backs of daniel’s thighs in a soothing pattern. “you’re such a good boy, you know that? always working so hard,” sungwoon says offhandedly, thumb working out a knot. 

 

daniel groans, head resting on the pillows, eyes closed. he ignores the igniting of  _ something _ in his gut at sungwoon’s words, stubborn to get his full ten minutes of rest. 

 

sungwoon moves up to daniel’s ass, fingers rubbing in circles, thumbs a little too close to where his fingers were moments prior. daniel feels his dick twitch, and groans again. 

 

“what’s wrong? want me to stop, baby boy?” sungwoon asks, leaning down so he could speak directly into daniel’s ear. all the while, sungwoon’s hands didn’t stop in their ministrations. daniel’s breath comes heavier, and he can't tell if it’s from the words sungwoon is saying, or the movement of his hands. 

 

“c-christ,” daniel says, grinding down into the mattress softly. he was halfway hard, and  _ very _ unhappy about it (read: just ready to get sungwoon’s dick  _ in him).  _

 

sungwoon laughs, bending down to kiss daniel’s cheek. “only took me three minutes in the end,” he says, and laughs again when daniel grumbles  _ “always pulling the baby boy card to get what you want.” _

 

“i’ll use it as long as it works,” he responds. “you wanna be on your back or stay on your stomach?”

 

daniel’s quiet for a while, thinking. sungwoon was so casual about  _ all  _ of this, and not for the first time daniel wonders how often he’s done this (not that it matters- it  _ doesn’t  _ but daniel’s curious by nature). “back, wanna see you,” he decides eventually, flipping over when sungwoon prompts him to. 

 

he’s still only half hard, so sungwoon grips daniel’s cock in his hand and strokes him. daniel gasps, still sensitive from earlier, but arches up into the stimulation anyway. 

 

it doesn’t take long for daniel to get fully hard, not with the movements of sungwoon’s hand and the elders fucking  _ mouth, _ whispering various things in his ear. 

 

sungwoon reaches over for the condom eventually, ripping open the packet and rolling it on. he pours more lube on his fingers and inserts them back inside daniel, making sure he was still stretched enough. 

 

and because he’s sungwoon, he tortures daniel  _ just  _ a little by crooking his fingers and giggling when daniel gasps. 

 

“can you- fucking get  _ on  _ with it,” daniel says grumpily, desperate at this point. sungwoon laughs again and pulls out his fingers, slicking up his cock with more lube. 

 

“baby boy, always so impatient,” sungwoon tsk’s, lining himself up with daniel’s hole in the process. daniel feels himself blush, still not used to sungwoon calling him  _ that _ . “you ready?” sungwoon asks, staring down at daniel with all the care in the world. daniel feels something well up in his chest, and nods. 

 

“go slow?” daniel says, voice lilting up at the end. 

 

“course. tell me to stop and i will, promise,” sungwoon assures, dipping down to kiss daniel gently. he grabs daniel’s hips, starting to push in slowly, and watches daniel’s face for any change. 

 

daniel’s not gonna lie and say it feels  _ good _ , because sungwoon is  _ thick _ , but he’s also not gonna lie and say it's the most uncomfortable thing in the world. sure, it stings a little, but overall it’s fine. daniel is fine. the kisses sungwoon keeps peppering on his neck are nice, too. 

 

sungwoon is practically panting by the time he bottoms out, forehead resting on daniel’s shoulder as he breathes. “so fucking tight,” he mumbles, pressing a long kiss into daniel’s shoulder. 

 

daniel clenches down experimentally, and giggles when sungwoon gasps, accepting the pinch to his side. “don’t, i’ll fuckin come right now,” sungwoon says. 

 

“already?” daniel mocks, echoing sungwoon’s words from earlier. he accepts the pinch to his side  _ again, _ and smiles. “you can move, now,” he tells sungwoon after a minute has passed. 

 

“kay,” sungwoon responds, sitting back up and pulling out, thrusting back in slowly. daniel gasps, hands coming up to wrap around sungwoon’s neck and pulling him back down close to him. 

 

sungwoon picks up the pace, hips snapping forward rhythmically. daniel feels his breath leave him with every thrust, letting out short moans every time sungwoon pushes back in. 

 

“hyung,” daniel gasps out, clenching down around sungwoon when the elder hits  _ that _ spot inside him. he feels sungwoon’s dick twitch and smirks. “hyung,” he whines again, pulling sungwoon down more so it was directly in his ear. 

 

“shut up,” sungwoon says, thrusting in particularly hard to get back at daniel, effectively making him shake. daniel feels himself getting close, still sensitive from earlier and all the sensations verging on  _ too much,  _ and reaches down to jerk himself off. 

 

he looks at sungwoon above him, looks at how the light from the outside buildings reflects on his face, watches as he bites his lip in concentration, listens as he lets out little moans after every thrust. 

 

it’s then when daniel realizes he’s absolutely, irrevocably in love with ha sungwoon. 

 

he bites his lip, eyes rolling back when sungwoon angles  _ just  _ right, and says something before his mind can even tell him it’s a disastrous idea. 

 

“i’m in love with you,” daniel gasps out, mind foggy. he comes immediately after, seeing stars, and doesn’t realize sungwoon had froze in place until a minute later. 

 

“what?” sungwoon says, mild panic in his voice. he’s still buried inside daniel. “no- no you’re not,” he says matter of factly. 

 

“i- hyung,” daniel says, suddenly feeling very alert, mind no longer fuzzy. panic was welling up in his chest the longer sungwoon looked at him like  _ that. “ _ hyung-“

 

“you’re  _ not _ , daniel,” sungwoon interrupts, sounding like he was trying to convince himself more than he was daniel. he pulls out of the younger, ignoring the noise daniel makes, and gets off the bed. he starts picking up his clothes off the ground, slipping them on as he goes. 

 

“hyung  _ please,” _ daniel practically begs, sitting up. he was on the verge of a panic attack, sungwoon having said nothing but telling him he  _ wasn’t  _ in love with him. he didn’t know what that  _ meant.  _ he throws the hotel comforter over him, and watches as sungwoon putters around the room in panic. everything had changed so  _ quickly.  _

 

“you can’t- this is a-  _ daniel, _ you  _ can’t _ have feelings for me,” sungwoon says, stopping to stare at daniel. “we agreed on a no feelings  _ thing,”  _ he reminds the younger. daniel feels himself tear up, and angrily wipes at his eyes. 

 

“it’s not my fucking  _ fault,  _ not when you- you do all  _ that,  _ all the fucking time. if you wanted a no feelings thing for  _ real  _ maybe you shouldn’t have acted like feelings were  _ reciprocated,” _ daniel says angrily, wiping at his eyes when tears spring up again. he feels like he can’t breathe, and sungwoon won’t stop  _ staring  _ at him. 

 

“this isn’t- this isn’t  _ okay _ ,” sungwoon says, and something about the way he says it has daniel freezing, mind going blank. he didn’t like that sentence at  _ all.  _ “i need to- i’m gonna go. i don’t know when i’ll be back,” sungwoon says, grabbing his keycard and wallet. daniel nods blankly, still reeling. “don’t wait up,” he adds as he opens the door, slipping out and the door slamming hard behind him. 

 

daniel gets up slowly, after he doesn’t know how long (could’ve been minutes, or maybe hours), and gets in the shower. he puts on clothes, and makes his way to seongwu and minhyun’s room, mind still blank yet panicking all at the same time. he knocks, barely registering he did, and when seongwu opens the door with a confused look on his face, daniel finally breaks down. 

 

he’s pulled into the room quickly, seongwu asking him what happened as daniel leans against the door, sobs wracking his body. the younger slides down the door, burying his face in his knees. “i-i fucked u-up,” he sobs out, hugging his knees closer to his chest in the process. 

 

seongwu looks to minhyun in panic, not knowing what happened to get daniel like this. the younger was always a ball of sunshine, always positive, and while he felt every emotion intensely he never- he never  _ broke down _ like this. 

 

minhyun makes his way over, concern etched into his face, and bends down in front of daniel. “niel,” he says softly, gripping daniel’s hands. “what do you mean?”

 

“i- i can’t say,” daniel says miserably, sniffling loudly. even now, he heard an echo of his mom’s  _ “protect yourself” _ in his head, even if he knew he could trust his hyungs. he refused to fuck up twice in one night. 

 

“does it have to do with sungwoonie hyung?” seongwu says softly, sitting on his knees next to minhyun, across from daniel. there was no doubt that the two had gotten closer lately, that much seongwu knew. it was a solid guess, he thought. 

 

seongwu watches as daniel freezes up, effectively stopping his sobs, and raises his head slowly. “yeah,” he says softly, hesitantly. he removes his hands from minhyun’s grip to wipe his eyes and sniffles loudly. 

 

“what happened?” seongwu prods softly, eyes searching daniel’s face for  _ anything.  _

 

“i- i,” daniel stutters, panic evident. 

 

“hey, it’s okay, yeah? no matter what it is, it’s okay,” minhyun chimes in softly. he reaches over to wipe one of daniel’s cheeks with his sleeve. 

 

“can… can we lay down before i tell you? with the lights off,” daniel asks, mind screaming at him to stop. he knew this was risky, could have a multitude of outcomes- but he felt like if he didn’t tell  _ someone _ , he was going to scream. plus, minhyun had told him it was okay no matter what- he wouldn’t lie.

 

“course,” seongwu says softly, standing up and helping daniel up as well, rubbing his back softly. minhyun got up as well, moving to flick off the lights. “you wanna be in the middle?” seongwu asks softly, peeling back the blankets on the bed. him and minhyun had pushed the two beds together earlier to watch a movie on one of their laptops, so it was big enough for the three of them now. 

 

“please,” daniel sniffles, moving to lay down. seongwu and minhyun follow in suit, minhyun moving up behind daniel so he could spoon him, seongwu laying flat so daniel could rest his head on his chest. it was all terribly soft, and nothing like them at all, but daniel was grateful. 

 

daniel is quiet for a while, just breathing and focusing on minhyun rubbing slow circles into his stomach. neither seongwu nor minhyun push him to talk. 

 

“i told hyung i was in love with him,” he says eventually, softly, almost inaudibly. “i didn’t mean to, but we were, uh... yeah, and. it just came out,” he says awkwardly, hand coming up to rub his nose. 

 

“he like, told me it was a no feelings thing from the start which i knew _ ,  _ i  _ knew  _ that, but i- i just thought maybe it… wasn’t anymore,” daniel continues, terrified of what was coming out of his mouth, that other people besides jisung knew now. “then he said- he said it wasn’t  _ okay _ , and it sounded so much like… like the little voice in my head that tells me shit like that everyday? so i kinda… freaked out,” he says, feeling a new wave of tears come on. 

 

seongwu runs his hand through daniel’s hair slowly, processing. he felt anger welling up in his chest, and didn’t know what to say. 

 

in the end, minhyun is the first one to speak. 

 

“when did all this start, nielie?” he asks softly, squeezing daniel slightly to let him know he was safe with them. that it was okay. 

 

“the hooking up or everything? because there’s three very different parts of the story,” daniel responds, voice tired from crying. “the making out started the night before the produce 101 finale, the hooking up was a few months ago, and the actual sex was uh. tonight,” he says, legs curling closer to his body. 

 

minhyun makes an upset noise, reaching down to hold one of daniel’s hands. he squeezes in what he hopes daniel takes as reassurance. 

 

“and he just… left after all of that?” seongwu finally pipes up, eyebrows furrowing. 

 

“yeah. told me not to wait up,” daniel says, frowning slightly. “he insisted i didn’t have feelings for him. feel like an idiot,” he adds. 

 

“you’re not an idiot, niel,” minhyun says firmly. “you’re  _ not _ an idiot for having very valid feelings.”

 

daniel goes quiet, nodding slightly. he didn’t really believe minhyun in the moment but- he was thankful anyway. 

 

seongwu huffs, mumbles a  _ “fucking asshole,” _ and continues petting daniel’s hair. seongwu always was just a little more protective over daniel than anyone else. he watches as the younger’s eyes flutter closed, breaths evening out, and sighs softly. 

 

“we can talk to sungwoon in the morning,” minhyun says, like he knows what seongwu is thinking, hand still holding daniel’s. “just sleep now.”

 

seongwu makes a noise of acknowledgement, curling closer to daniel as if to protect him, and falls asleep. 

 

if when they’re standing in the lobby the next morning, daniel’s eyes puffy and both seongwu and minhyun scowling at sungwoon well- no one mentions it.  

  
  
  


_ “is hyung okay?” _

 

_ “hyung, what's wrong with daniel?” _

 

_ “why won't he talk to us?” _

 

daniel hears them loud and clear outside his door. seongwu has taken to sleeping in the bottom bunk with him, on the outside so daniel feels safe and protected. minhyun has started checking up on him often as well. even jisung has caught on that something has gone wrong, spending more time in daniel’s apartment rather than his own. 

 

they're back in korea and they have a comeback coming up soon.

 

daniel has never felt so fundamentally drained in his life. 

 

daniel thinks it would be dramatic to say he’s going through  _ heartbreak- _ there was nothing, no reciprocated feelings in the first place. he thinks it would be dramatic, yet that's what it  _ feels _ like. it feels like every time he breathes his heart cracks a little more, and soon it's going to snap in two. he can't  _ function _ , can't go about his day without thinking about the look on sungwoon’s face before he left the hotel room, about what he  _ said  _ before leaving. somehow, he thinks, it's all his fault. there's no way this would've happened if he just kept his mouth  _ shut.  _

 

“d’you wanna go eat?” seongwu whispers, voice groggy from sleep but still full of concern. daniel  _ hates _ that he's turned seongwu into a concerned and overprotective best friend. “the kids want to see you. they miss you,” he says quietly, rubbing his cheek to try and wake up fully.

 

“maybe in a little,” daniel whispers, feeling like his voice couldn’t go louder even if he tried. he’s never felt so fundamentally  _ awful _ in his life. over the sungwoon situation, over his own feelings he’s desperately been trying to repress (since they first came up until now), over essentially turning seongwu and minhyun into bodyguards like he’s someone who needs more protection than he gets. 

 

“how do you feel today?” seongwu says, reaching up to run a hand through daniel’s hair, smoothing it down in the process. the action is so caring and  _ soft _ daniel thinks he could cry (or not, probably- he’s cried a lot these past few weeks). 

 

“pretty shit,” daniel responds, tucking his head underneath seongwu’s chin and letting the elder pet through his hair. he wants to go back to sleep, wants desperately to just sleep until all of this has passed and him and sungwoon were back to normal again. he knows seongwu won’t let him though, having been pretty good at making sure daniel didn’t fall too much into a spiral he couldn’t get out of. 

 

seongwu hums, moving to rub daniel’s back for a few minutes. eventually he sits up, jostling daniel in the process (ignoring his whine of protest), peeling the blankets back so he can stand up. he puts his hands on his hips, much like a concerned mother, humming again in contemplation, before eventually grabbing daniel’s hands and forcing him to sit up. daniel groans, and honestly wants to throw a fit because he knows where this is going, but he sits up without much of a fuss. 

 

“shower it is, then,” seongwu says, daniel being able to  _ hear _ the proud note in his voice once daniel is up and standing. seongwu goes to collect clothes for him, like he’s five and can’t do it himself, but really, _ truly _ daniel does appreciate it. appreciates how patient seongwu has been with him, appreciates how seongwu has stayed up countless nights listening to him cry, appreciates how seongwu has covered for him more in the past few weeks than daniel ever has for him. 

 

daniel makes his way out of the room once seongwu has handed him clothes, urged on by the hand seongwu has on his lower back. it feels like the click of their bedroom door behind them has the entire apartment falling silent, pairs of eyes turning towards him and seongwu in an instant. seongwu announces, a little embarrassingly, that daniel is going to shower, then he’s going to eat, and  _ then _ he’s going to spend time with everyone. daniel feels drained already but- but he, too, misses everyone, so he knows it'll be good. he’ll be good. 

 

daniel slips into the bathroom with the gentle shove from seongwu, spending more time in the shower than he normally does. it's nice, to not be interrupted with constant bangs on the door and shouts to hurry up because “ _ i really gotta pee!” _ the longer he spends in the shower, the better he feels, like the steam is curing him of everything. he gets out of the shower eventually, though, getting dressed in clean clothes and feeling better than he has in a while. maybe seongwu  _ did _ have a point, sometimes _.  _

 

he makes his way out of the bathroom, hair fluffy on top of his head and stomach rumbling. he realizes he was hungrier than he thought, and walks to the kitchen where for some reason everyone in the apartment has congregated. 

 

“hyung!” daehwi’s voice chirps happily, wiggling his way out of the kitchen so he can hug daniel. daehwi’s arms are thrown around daniel’s neck, and daniel has to wrap his hands around daehwi to keep them both upright. 

 

“hey, hwi,” daniel says softly, rubbing daehwi’s back softly before letting go. he knows daehwi has missed him- knows  _ all  _ of them have if at all evidenced by the expectant eyes turned on him right now. “um, hi,” he says, feeling awkward but happy to be around everyone nonetheless. 

 

all at once there’s a flurry of voices, people talking over each other to try and say various things they've been holding in for weeks ( _ waiting for daniel to feel better, waiting for him to be back to his normal self _ ) and daniel just- laughs. it’s so chaotic, so  _ them _ before all of this happened, daniel feels instantly better. he shushes all of them, smile wide on his face. 

 

“can i just- can i eat first?” he says, laughter still making his voice light and airy. once again there’s a flurry of voices, this time of agreement. daniel catches seongwu’s eyes from where he's standing towards the back of the kitchen, noting the proud expression in his eyes. daniel smiles at him, pushing his way into the kitchen further to get food. he felt almost-  _ normal _ right now. 

 

he settles on the floor in the living room with his food and begins to eat, everyone following him and smushing onto the couch and sitting in various places on the floor. it almost feels perfectly  _ normal _ , except for the sungwoon sized hole in the mess. the thought has a pang shooting through daniel’s heart, mouth turning down slightly. jihoon notices, and rushes to strike up a conversation about the newest game he's been playing (“ _ hyung! it's so lonely without you yelling in my ear to dodge left and right!”),  _ and daniel smiles at him in gratitude.

 

sure, he wasn't completely back to his normal self, but he had his members to keep him out of his own head long enough to feel better. he was eternally grateful for that. 

 

it's almost ironic how his night plummets after how good his day was. he flops into bed next to seongwu, exhausted from all the social interaction, and  _ that's  _ when everything hits him. how weird everything felt without sungwoon. how  _ awful _ he suddenly feels thinking about the other man. 

 

it's like seongwu can sense his change in mood immediately, the elder shifting to wrap around daniel. “alright?” he asks softly, voice barely above a whisper in their dark room. daniel can barely even make out the features of his face. 

 

“no,” daniel responds honestly, throat clicking as he swallows roughly. he doesn't want to cry, he really  _ doesn't, _ but it's looking more and more like he will. “i miss sungwoon hyung,” he says, a little devastating in the way his voice cracks on the man’s name.  _ and here come the tears.  _

 

seongwu shushes him quickly, hand coming up to wipe at daniel’s cheeks, letting out little  _ “oh” _ s and “ _ hey” _ s in the process. “i’m sure he misses you too, niel. you guys just have something you have to work through, yeah?” he says softly, leaning his forehead on daniel’s own so the younger will look at him. daniel sniffles, tears still streaming down his cheeks. 

 

“but it won't be the same, will it? cause i just- i had to open my mouth and-”

 

“daniel,” seongwu interrupts, voice stern. “we talked about this a while ago. you know it's not your fault for having feelings, and you  _ know _ it's not your fault for saying anything. sure, the way sungwoon hyung reacted could've been infinitely better but this isn't his fault either.”

 

daniel sniffles, falling quiet for a while. it's not that he doesn’t believe seongwu in the grand scheme- it's more like he's too upset to really  _ believe _ this isn't his fault. this entire time seongwu has been trying to shift the perspective for daniel, to show him maybe it was no one’s fault at all. it's hard, for daniel, to see it that way but he really  _ is  _ trying. 

 

then, in the most devastating way seongwu has ever heard, daniel lets out a  _ “what if this isn't fixed before disbandment?” _ , voice cracking halfway through. seongwu doesn't know how to respond, and the two fall into silence while seongwu rubs daniel’s back. 

 

daniel falls asleep quickly after that, but he's no less worried when he wakes up than he was when he fell asleep. 

  
  
  


daniel’s betrayal comes in the form of a 4pm text from seongwu, one that says  _ “meet me in the practice room.” _

 

he goes, because he thinks nothing of it. various members have asked him to accompany them in the practice room lately with the comeback coming up, choreography still not fully cemented in place. daniel knew it best, was always one of the ones who did, so he was easy (and most times the first one) to go to for help. 

 

it's only when he's sitting there on the practice room floor, stretching, and the door opens that he realizes his colossal fuckup. his head whips around, and what he sees almost has him sprinting out as fast as possible. 

 

sungwoon, standing there, looking just as panicked as daniel feels (and probably looks, too). 

 

“uh, minhyunnie, he?” is what sungwoon manages to get out, at the same time as daniel’s “seongwu was supposed to-” is spoken. they stare at each other for a minute, before realization dawns on both of their faces. 

 

“those  _ motherfuckers _ set us up,” sungwoon all but hisses out, staying firmly rooted in place. daniel doesn't know why he's not  _ leaving.  _ why he would even want to be around daniel after what happened (daniel realizes how stupid that sounds- why it should be the other way around, but part of him still craves to be around sungwoon).

 

“i guess so,” daniel says quietly, timidly almost, going back to stretching just to give him something to do. it's quiet for a minute, before sungwoon mumbles out a  _ “fuck it,” _ and steps fully into the room, closing the door behind him. it has daniel’s anxiety skyrocketing before he can even attempt to stay calm. “what are you doing?” it comes out more biting than daniel intends, but  _ fuck it,  _ he has a right to be mad (he thinks) and he's  _ anxious.  _ they've barely even made eye contact these past few weeks, so  _ sue _ him for being distressed locked in a room with the other man. 

 

“i- listen- i just wanted to say… that i’m sorry,” sungwoon says, really suffering through his words as he speaks. he leans against the practice room door, sliding down it so he can be more level with daniel, and stares at him through the mirror. “i fucked up, we both know that,” he adds quietly. 

 

daniel lets out a puff of air that sounds somewhat like a scoff, reaching over to stretch his other side. the burn helped him stay grounded, when all he wanted to do was shake out of his skin in that current moment. “fucked up you did,” daniel eventually replies, feeling like sungwoon deserved to know just how  _ awful _ daniel felt. he doesn't meet sungwoon's eyes even though he can feel them on him. 

 

“and i know that. i know i shouldn't have reacted the way i did,  _ especially _ in that moment. but if you would give me a chance to explain why i did, i’d appreciate it,” sungwoon says, and the formality of it all has daniel on edge, craving for the banter they used to have. he knows they don't have that, not in this moment right now. 

 

daniel finally looks up, staring at sungwoon expectantly through the mirror, urging him on without words. sungwoon takes a deep breath, staring down at his hands before words start to tumble out of his mouth. 

 

“i was scared. terrified, actually. shocked, too. which isn't an excuse for how i acted, so please don't take it that way, but there was a lot going on inside my head, you know? i guess at that time i was… really coming to terms with my own feelings for you? so it was still an open wound, something i was pushing down so fiercely because we agreed for it to be a no feelings thing. i assumed- i thought you were still just… i thought you didn't feel like that for me so i didn’t want to jeopardize our relationship by saying something?” he stops, head tilting slightly, and goes quieter when he says, “plus, it was the first time i’d ever had romantic feelings for a guy. scared the fuck outta me. never felt like i'd willingly jump in front of a bullet for someone, but- but with you it was- it  _ is _ like that.”

 

daniel’s quiet for a long time, opting to curl up in a ball instead of continue stretching, head resting on his knees. it takes him a while to process what sungwoon said, and when he does he wants to cry. he  _ knows  _ he can't forgive sungwoon that easily, especially when he's still so hurt and broken by the entire experience, but he's willing to think it over more intensely- to try and make whatever they decide, work. 

 

“what does that mean, then?” daniel says quietly, biting his lip. 

 

“it means i love you, too, and i fucked up,” sungwoon responds, finally looking back up at daniel and meeting his eyes in the mirror. he looks on the verge of tears, and daniel frowns slightly. 

 

“i- this is a lot, you know that right? you had me thinking for  _ weeks _ you hated me, so even though i know now you  _ don't  _ it's still a lot to… process, i guess,” daniel says, rubbing his forehead to try and release some tension there. he was never good at talking about difficult things like this with the person who’d caused him to be upset in the first place. 

 

“i’m not asking for you to run into my arms and live a happy life with me,” sungwoon responds, playing with his fingers as he speaks. “especially not right now. i know that's not fair to you or your feelings. i just needed you to know how i felt, since i guess we’ve both been pretty miserable.”

 

daniel falls quiet again, sighing heavily. part of him  _ does _ want to run into sungwoon's arms, back where he feels safe, but sungwoon is right. it wouldn't be fair to him and how he felt. he needed time to process, to think everything over, to  _ really _ figure out if he still felt the same. 

 

“i’ll think it over, okay?” daniel says after a while, and it's the best he can offer right now. he  _ wants _ to fix all of this with sungwoon, even if he ends up not feeling the same anymore and they just go back to being friends. he wants this to be  _ over.  _ he just wants sungwoon back, in some way or another. 

 

“of course, take all the time you need,” sungwoon says, giving daniel a small but genuine smile. he stands up, dusting off his pants in the process, and gives daniel another smile. “i’ll leave you to practicing, then.”

 

“bye, hyung,” daniel says softly, feeling a little better than he has in a while. who knew communication could be so  _ effective.  _ he watches sungwoon go, and smiles slightly to himself. 

 

if when he goes home later (because yes, he did actually practice) and calls seongwu a dick, it's only well deserved. who the fuck sets up elaborate schemes like  _ that _ to get two people to talk? 

  
  
  


it's not that daniel’s forgotten about sungwoon’s apology, and in a sense, confession. 

 

it's not that he hasn't been thinking about what he's going to do about it, either. 

 

it's more like he's so caught up in the comeback stress, so caught up in disbandment talk, that he  _ can't  _ do anything about it right now. sometimes he’ll feel sungwoon's eyes on him (from across a room, from next to him, across from him), expectant and hopeful, and daniel’s heart pangs in his chest. he wants to forgive him, he really does. he just doesn't know  _ how,  _ not right now when everything is so high strung. he's never been a multitasker, mind always focused on one thing before moving onto the next. 

 

between the fansigns and music show performances, daniel doesn't know how to think seriously about anything other than his  _ job.  _ he can tell the others are getting frustrated, too. by now they know him and sungwoon had  _ some _ kind of talk, the tension surrounding them less palpable and acrid than before. the rest of them just don't understand why he can't just  _ forgive _ sungwoon, not when they don't know the whole story. they don't understand that daniel’s  _ trying.  _ trying with everything in him to forget the look on sungwoon's face before he left, forget the words he said that validated some monster inside daniel telling him things he didn't want to hear. trying to forget how awful he felt for weeks. 

 

he knows he can't completely get rid of that, knows it wouldn't be right to just forget it all, but he felt it was right to make  _ peace _ with it. understand sungwoon was terrified, too. understand that while sungwoon's actions weren't  _ right,  _ daniel wasn't  _ wrong _ (in a broad sense, in the smaller, more personal sense, in any way you could spin it). 

 

the only thing he's managed to accomplish during all of this -for lack of a better word-  _ mess,  _ is that he did in fact still feel the same. 

 

how could he not, really? with the way sungwoon was always looking out for him (he had learned that sungwoon purposely would send minhyun down to be with him during those weeks he was upset, rather than ask minhyun to be with sungwoon himself even though he was hurting too, because he wanted daniel to feel loved and cared for), with the way sungwoon had treated him  _ before _ everything happened (with love and tenderness, always knowing what he needed before daniel even knew himself), with the way sungwoon was just so perfectly-  _ sungwoon.  _ it was hard not to love the man, even if he had hurt daniel. at least he had  _ apologized,  _ had seen where he’d been wrong and actively wanted to try and make it better. that was the most daniel could ask for after all of this. 

 

daniel knows he's running out of time, too. with a little under two months until their contracts officially end, he knows he has to figure out what he's going to do  _ soon.  _ that adds more pressure, more fuel to the fire. it keeps daniel up at night, even when he knows he has to be awake in four hours for yet another schedule. 

 

if anyone notices the dark circles that only seem to get darker as the weeks go on, they don't mention it. 

  
  
  


a knock on a door. a rustle of sheets that can be heard from outside. the door opening carelessly, like the person opening it isn't expecting it to be anything special, just another annoyance in a sea of annoyances they put up with daily. 

 

but it is special, because it's daniel this time, and not one of the kids coming to annoy their hyung. 

 

it's special, because daniel has finally decided what he's going to do, and now here he is, ready to talk about it. he's nervous- absolutely  _ terrified  _ for how this is going to go, but he reminds himself it's  _ sungwoon.  _ nothing can go as bad as the first time (he hopes. he prays). 

 

“hey, hyung. you have a minute to talk?”  _ a minute, an hour- all the time you can give me? _

 

“of course, niel.”  _ all my time, it's yours.  _

 

(the words unspoken, the words that don't need to be spoken.)

 

daniel steps into the room, shoving his hands in his pockets. he feels out of place, like a disruption in the equilibrium. this used to be a place he felt as safe in as his own room, his own space, but now he just feels like a nuisance. 

 

“sit,” sungwoon prompts gently, gesturing broadly to his desk chair, or maybe his bed. daniel chooses the desk chair; neutral, safe, not too close but not far either. sungwoon goes to his bed, making himself comfortable. “everything okay?” he asks gently, hint of awkwardness still between them from the events of the past months ( _ god,  _ it's been  _ months).  _

 

“yeah i just- i wanted to update you? on what i’ve been thinking about,” daniel says, fiddling with the zipper on his sweatpants pocket. he used to think they were stupid, zippered pockets, but in that moment they're the greatest invention in fashion. 

 

sungwoon hums in acknowledgement, waiting for daniel to go on, giving him all the time in the world. 

 

“i… want to forgive you,” daniel says softly, hesitantly. he's been thinking about it for days, forgiving sungwoon. about what he’s going to say, about what he needs sungwoon to understand. “i want to forgive you, and i  _ am,  _ but i’m still extremely… hurt? hurt, yeah.

 

“i know you already know, but what happened wasn't okay… even if you were scared. especially how you didn't even try to talk to me after and explain  _ anything.  _ granted, i know i wouldn't have listened, but the not trying from you made me feel worse i think,” he says, biting his lip. he doesn't want to come off as demanding or bitter, that's not what he's going for. he just needs sungwoon to understand. 

 

“i thought about it, a lot,” sungwoon says, once he's sure that daniel is done with his thought in that moment. “of trying to explain. but i don't think i could've- i don't think it would've came out right. i think it would've made it worse.”

 

“okay,” daniel says, nodding. this was a process. of trying to get his thoughts out, while understanding sungwoon’s own. this is what forgiveness  _ was.  _ “do you- do you… still feel the same?”

 

“i couldn’t  _ not _ even if i tried, niel. trust me,” he says, mouth quirking up at the corner slightly. 

 

“i feel the same, too,” daniel says, one leg coming up to rest on the chair. “i… want something, concrete, i think. i talked to my mom? and she said what i'm missing is that- that feeling of feeling  _ wanted,  _ loved. i agree, i think,” he adds, sounding unsure but sure all at the same time. 

 

sungwoon is quiet for a while, worrying his lip between his teeth in the process. “you know it'd be hard, right? not to mention risky,” he says eventually, softly. it sounds like he really has to force the words out, like he doesn't  _ want  _ to say them, but feels like he has to. 

 

“of course,” daniel responds, playing with his fingers as he mulls over something in his head. “i’d like to try, eventually, though. doesn't have to be now- granted you still feel the same in the future,” he's quick to add, like he still can't comprehend sungwoon actually feels the same (can you blame him, though?). 

 

“i'd like that, too,” sungwoon says, smile slowly taking over his face. daniel can tell he's feeling giddy, knows what that looks like on sungwoon by now. he's feeling it too, along with relief. relief this is finally over. 

 

“okay, cool,” daniel says, laughing slightly to release any left over tension, butterflies taking over. “cool,” he says again, finally fully looking at sungwoon and smiling wider. he stands, sungwoon following, and they just look at each other for a minute. it's weird, finally feeling comfortable enough to do this again, but a welcomed weirdness. daniel reaches out for sungwoon’s hand, holding it gently, and smiles again. this time it's softer, full of some other emotion neither can name but both are feeling in that moment. daniel leans over slightly, planting a kiss on sungwoon's cheek, and goes to leave without another word. 

 

there'd be time to talk more later. talk about everything, all the infinite possibilities of  _ them.  _ right now all that mattered was that they were back on good terms, back to  _ them.  _

 

they would be alright, and that's all that mattered anymore. if they could get through this, they could get through anything _ , together _ . 

 

_________________

 

wanna one ends with a lot more pomp and circumstance than produce 101 did. four days of a final concert, four days of tears and choked out promises for the coming year, four days of love surrounded by everyone who mattered to them. daniel knows he’ll never forget his time as wanna one, not even if he woke up one day and forgot everything  _ else.  _

 

daniel and sungwoon get together in the spring, when the flowers are blooming and everyone is out of their winter slumps.

 

they’re meeting up at a cafe today. one of their first official “dates”. it's not like he hasn’t spoken to sungwoon in months, especially with the wanna one group chat being alive every minute possible, so he doesn’t get  _ why  _ he feels nervous about seeing the man again.

 

maybe it's how he looks with the warm café lights encasing him in this ethereal glow, the blonde he’d dyed his hair definitely doing him wonders. maybe it’s the way he smiles warmly at daniel, gestures to the seat across from him. maybe it’s the way he already has a drink for daniel (his favorite, daniel notes with a pang to his heart).

 

or maybe it’s the way in which as soon as he sits down, daniel feels like  _ nothing _ changed at all. like they didn’t disband, like sungwoon isn’t a solo artist, like they were back under the blinding lights of the recording studio during produce 101 when he first saw sungwoon and those ugly colored contacts.

 

“hey,” sungwoon grins, unabashed joy sparkling in his eyes.

 

“hi,” daniel replies softly, unable to hide his grin that breaks out immediately.

 

it’s in this moment that daniel knows that everything will be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you made it this far... then thank you so much, truly! im not on twitter much anymore but i do have a [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/nwnist) if anyone wants to leave any comments!


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